Indonesia names Pertamina's first female president

Jakarta: Indonesia appointed Karen Agustiawan as PT Pertamina's president, the first female chief executive officer of an Asian national oil company, as the government focuses on boosting the country's declining petroleum output.

State-Enterprises Minister Sofyan Djalil installed Agustiawan, 50, in the position yesterday. Omar Anwar, head of Rio Tinto Plc's Indonesian unit, was appointed vice-president.

Indonesia left the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) this year after crude oil output slumped 49 per cent from a peak in 1977. The government wants new officials at Pertamina, the biggest contributor to state coffers, to focus on drilling and producing petroleum, said Energy Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro. "The big profits come from the upstream," Purnomo said. "We want production to rise."

Indonesia's crude oil output fell 0.5 per cent to 834,911 barrels a day in January from a month earlier, data from oil and gas regulator BPMigas showed. Pertamina has several new projects including the development of Cepu, Indonesia's largest untapped oilfield, in Java and gas production on Sulawesi island that will feed the country's fourth liquefied natural gas plant.

Agustiawan graduated from Bandung Institute of Technology and was a manager at Halliburton Co's Indonesian unit. She had been an adviser to Ari Soemarno, Pertamina's current president, before she was promoted to upstream director on March 5 last year. Soemarno's term was slated to end in 2011.

Anwar is replacing Iin Arifin Takhyan, who, with Soemarno, was appointed in March 2006.

The government is keeping the other executives on the board, said Agustiawan, who will hold on to her position as upstream director.