VICO Indonesia has been operating the Sanga-Sanga Production Sharing Contract (PSC), which is located in the Kutai Basin of East Kalimantan and covers an area of approximately 1,700 square kilometers, for more than 40 years. It has produced more than 12,6 TCF of gas and 0.4 billion barrels of liquid from the production fields in Badak, Mutiara, Semberah, Nilam, Pamaguan, Lampake and Beras.

History
More than forty years ago an independent oil company made a rather unexpected discovery. VICO Indonesia (originally known as HUFFCO) was searching for oil in the Kutai Basin of the Mahakam River delta in East Kalimantan and, with their first wildcat well, struck hydrocarbons. It was not, however, the oil field they were hoping for. Instead it was a huge deposit of natural gas.

The exploration activities were triggered three years earlier when Texas oilman Roy M. Huffington and Virginia businessman General Arch Sproul signed a Production Sharing Contract with Pertamina covering 631,000 hectares of the Mahakam River delta, long thought to be rich in oil reserves. With the support of joint venture partners Ultramar Indonesia Limited, Union Texas East Kalimantan Limited and Universe Tankships, Inc., they commenced their search.

In February 1972 they discovered the giant Badak Field, now considered one of the most important milestones in the history of energy in Indonesia.

The Badak gas reserves were located in the middle of the jungles of Eastern Kalimantan, with the nearest market more than a thousand miles away. But Huffington and Sproul had a vision which was shared by both Mobil Oil Company (who had discovered a large gas field in Arun) and Pertamina President-Director, Dr. Ibnu Sutowo to liquefy the natural gas and ship the resulting LNG in specially designed tankers to Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.Pertamina, with the support of VICO and its partners, executed a 20-year LNG sales contract in December 1973 with five Japanese utility companies and a Japanese steel company, and constructed a liquefaction plant at Bontang on the coast of East Kalimantan.

The first shipment of LNG produced from Badak gas sailed to Japan in August 1977, only five-and-a-half years after discovery. Bontang had produced the first drop of commercially produced liquefied natural gas in the history of Indonesia.

Since its initial discovery in 1972, VICO Indonesia has drilled more than 1000 wells. The oil and gas reserves are located in the giant Badak, Nilam, Mutiara, Semberah, Pamaguan, Beras, and Lampake Fields.

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