Indonesia offers Natuna role to Petronas -Malaysia's Najib

JAKARTA, April 23 (Reuters) - Indonesia has offered Malaysian state energy firm Petronas a chance to participate in developing the country's giant Natuna D-Alpha gas field, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Thursday.

Indonesia's government has appointed state oil firm Pertamina as the operator of Natuna, but it does not have the capacity to develop the gas field alone, with an estimated investment of $40 billion required.

Last year, Pertamina named Petronas [PETR.UL] among eight companies that could be potential partners.

The others include Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), Chevron (CVX.N) and France's Total (TOTF.PA), Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L), Norway's StatoilHydro (STL.OL), Italy's Eni (ENI.MI), and China National Petroleum Corp.

"I thank the president for the offer to Petronas to participate in the Natuna gas area," Najib, who is on a visit to Indonesia, told reporters following talks with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta.

Yudhoyono told the same news conference the country would continue to cooperate with Malaysia in the field of electricity, oil and gas and bioenergy, but gave no further details.

Pertamina has said it wants to keep a 40 percent stake in the Natuna D-Alpha gas project with 60 percent to be shared among the partners.

Indonesia has said talks on the offshore gas project with Exxon Mobil, which has controlled the block since the 1990s, had stopped due to disagreements over how to split the gas output.

Another unresolved issue is the length of the U.S. firm's contract. Indonesia says Exxon Mobil's contract giving it a 76 percent share has expired, whereas the energy major has said the contract is valid until 2009.

Exxon Mobil officials could not immediately be reached on Thursday.

The Natuna D-Alpha block has around 222 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas reserves, of which about 46 tcf are thought to be commercially recoverable.

The block, which is about 1,100 kilometres (680 miles) north of Jakarta and 200 km east of the West Natuna fields that feed gas to Singapore, accounts for about a quarter of Indonesia's total commercially recoverable gas reserves of 182 tcf.

Energy minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said previously the price of Natuna gas was still too high, making it expensive to develop and difficult to sell. (Reporting by Muklis Ali; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)