Jakarta delays planned reshuffle of Pertamina board

Eric Watkins
OGJ Oil Diplomacy Editor

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 8 -- The Indonesian government has delayed its planned announcement of a reshuffle of the board of directors of state-owned PT Pertamina until all candidates can be screened by an evaluation team and approved by the company president.

According to Indonesia’s current minister of state for state-owned enterprise Mustafa Abubakar, the evaluation of new candidates by a team comprised of himself, the energy minister, the finance minister, and the chief economics minister is still underway.

“We expect the process to finish in the third week of January or at the end of the month at the latest,” said Mustafa, who confirmed that Jakarta would keep Pertamina Pres. Director Karen Agustiawan, while removing the position of vice-president director now held by Omar S. Anwar.

The change is significant. When Agustiawan and Anwar were appointed last year, Indonesia's former minister of state for state enterprises Sofyan Djalil said the appointments represented a combination of business and technical expertise.

"Bu Karen has expertise in technical aspects of the oil and gas industry, while Pak Omar has experience in business and finance," said Djalil. "I believe they are going to make a good combination for Pertamina," Djalil said (OGJ Online, Feb. 13, 2009).

In announcing the coming change, which includes reshuffling all of Pertamina’s directors, Mustafa said Jakarta expects that “the new directors of Pertamina will support the company in bringing in more profit” than in previous years.

Mustafa said the new directors are expected to help the company earn 20-25 trillion rupiah ($2.16 billion) in profit during 2010. In 2008, Pertamina earned 30.2 trillion rupiah, up 54.8% from 2007, while it is predicted to earn 17.7 trillion rupiah in net profit in 2009.

Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].