China National Offshore Oil Company Limited (CNOOC Limited) announced on Monday that the phase two of the Southeast Sumatra (SES) gas project has started production.

CNOOC SES Ltd., a CNOOC Ltd. subsidiary, was the operator, said CNOOC Ltd.

The contractual gas delivery rate of the phase two of the project would be 78.4 million cubic feet (approximately 2.22 million cubic meters) per day, but the company did not state the current daily output.

The project is located about 120 kilometers offshore West Java in Indonesia, with an average water depth of 30 meters.

The development facilities in phase two include a production and processing platform, a gas plant, a gas compression and processing platform and three sub-sea pipelines.

The natural gas produced will mainly be supplied to the power plant of the state utility company PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN).

Liu Jian, executive vice president of the CNOOC Ltd., said the successful start-up of SES phase two would not only boost CNOOC's overseas gas production, but also supply more clean energy to the local people.

CNOOC Ltd. holds 65.5 percent interest of Southeast Sumatra production sharing contract (PSC) and acts as the operator. The PSC partners include Japan's INPEX Sumatra, Ltd., KNOC Sumatra Ltd., Orchard Energy Sumatra BV, Fortuna Resources (Sunda) Ltd., Talisman UK (Southeast Sumatra) Ltd. and Talisman Resources (Bahamas) Ltd..

Phase one of the project commenced production in 2006.

(Xinhua News Agency September 25, 2007)