In an interview with the Jakarta Post Purnomo said, “Indonesia’s yearly crude oil output had declined by an average of 16% over past years but a new production facility would push output back to above 1 million barrels per day.”

“The Belanak FPSO is one of the largest floating production facilities in the world and it will not only produce crude oil, it will also produce gas, condensate and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in significant amounts.

“At its peak, the Belanak floating production storage and off-loading (FPSO) facility could produce up to 100, 000 bpd of crude oil. It won’t be that large at the beginning but it should reach that peak level in less than a year.

“Although the natural gas would be used in part to supply Malaysia and Singapore, the project was funded by US oil giant ConocoPhillips with the Indonesian government assured of 85% of the crude oil output,” added Purnomo.

In a related report, ConocoPhillips has announced it will begin pumping operations at the Belanak field as early as next month.

According to Bloomberg, citing ConocoPhillips’ Indonesian unit head William Bullock, “[ConocoPhillips] will begin pumping crude oil from the Belanak field in Indonesia by November. The field [will] produce as much as 20,000 barrels a day.”

“Output from the field will rise to 35,000 barrels a day by early next year [and] ConocoPhillips will begin shipping oil from the field in December, with a first shipment of about 300,000 barrels,” he added.

It is understood the energy giant spent US$176 million in developing Belanak and another US$709 million to on the massive Belanak FPSO.