RI's Bioremediation Case Attracts World Attention

Pekanbaru, Riau, May 10 (Antara) - Upstream Oil and Gas Communications Forum (FKK Hulu Migas) said bioremediation corruption case in Indonesia had attracted the attention of oil and gas business players in the world. "It attracts the world attention because it involves criminal case," FKK Hulu Migas Chairman Joang Laksanto told Antara through an electronic mail message here on Friday. Industry in general also gave serious attention to the corruption case in the bioremediation project. This was because it concerned legal certainties on business contracts and law enforcement. He said that enforcement of the law with regard to the case must be professional and fair. "We are concerned with the bioremediation project of PT Chevron Pacific Indonesia (CPI). The management of its environment program has been arranged in a ministerial decree but they are facing jail on corruption charges," he said. He said that upstream oil activities were done by contractors based on a production sharing contract (PSC) which had been agreed by the Indonesian government. PSC is a business contract between the government of Indonesia and the private sector which is in the realm of the civil law. As a business contract, according to Joang, PSC serves as a binding regulation in the realm of civil law for parties involved in it. "So, any actions against its provisions should be handled based on the civil law," Joang said. Yet, he said he still recognized the legal system in Indonesia, calling on the court to assess the case and facts in courts fairly and objectively. Joang was referring to an alleged corruption case in a bioremediation project involving CPI and two companies it had named to carry out the project. A director for the company that carried out the bioremediation project for CPI has been found guilty and sentenced on Wednesday to five years in jail for causing more than US$3 million in state losses. Ricksy Prematury, the director of Green Planet Indonesia (GPI), one of the companies hired by Chevron Indonesia to carry out bioremediation projects on its behalf, was also ordered by the Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court to pay a Rp200 million ($20,000) fine or spend another two months in jail. The court also ordered GPI to pay back the US$3.089 million in state losses within a month or have the state confiscate the company`s assets, according to the Jakarta Globe. The sanction is lighter than prosecutor`s request for the court to sentence Ricksy to 12 years in prison and fine him Rp 1 billion or spend another six months in jail. The verdict stated that GPI botched the bioremediation project it carried out for Chevron in Duri, Riau, incorrectly testing the oil-polluted soil`s characteristics and using the wrong bacteria to neutralize the pollutants. Bioremediation is a process that uses biological organisms to remove or neutralize pollutants. The state loss was incurred as Chevron reportedly received a cost recovery budget from the now-defunct upstream oil and gas regulator BP Migas. Earlier during the trial, prosecutors said the cost recovery budget used to pay what they called a `fictitious` bioremediation project reached US$23.36 million.