Indonesia says work on Inpex Masela gas block may start 2011.

The project is expected to be onstream in 2016, a senior official said.

 "An economic study on [the] Masela block development ... said that the project would be economically viable to be built in offshore or floating rather than onshore," BPMigas chairman R Priyono said. BPMigas and Inpex would start to seek buyers domestically and externally, as most of the gas would be allocated for export in the form of LNG, Priyono said.
"We will offer the LNG to Taiwan, China and Japan," Priyono said.

 Under Indonesia's 2001 oil and gas law, every gas company operating in Indonesia has an obligation to sell 25% of total gas production domestically.

The block is estimated to need $10 billion of investment, director of Inpex's Masela project division, Shunichiro Sugaya, said in 2009.

The government approved Inpex's development plan in January.  Inpex had planned to build a floating LNG plant with a capacity of 4.5 million mt/year.

The block may contain potential gas reserves of 14 Tcf, on a par with the 14.4 Tcf Tangguh project in Indonesia's Papua province.
The block is located some 400 km from Darwin, Australia. Inpex has a 100% stake in the block.

Anita Nugraha