Jakarta - French oil firm Total will decide how large a stake it will retain from 2018 in Indonesia’s offshore Mahakam oil and gas block within days, the country’s energy minister said on Friday.

From Jan. 1, 2018, state energy company Pertamina will take over as operator of Indonesia’s top gas producing field from Total. But it is not yet clear how Total and other partner Japan’s Inpex, will split the 30 percent stake that Indonesia has proposed they share.

“Inpex has said they are ready to continue no matter what portion [they get],” Energy Minister Sudirman Said told reporters.

There may be no decision until the middle of next week at the earliest, according to Joko Siswanto, upstream oil and gas director at the energy ministry, who said Total would meet the other firms on Wednesday.

“They will sit together with Pertamina and Inpex …If it’s economic for them, they will join,” Siswanto told reporters, referring to Total’s interest in Mahakam. He added that his office would give Total and Inpex until the end of July to decide the size of stake each would take.

Siswanto noted that as well as their operating interest, the split — the percentage of oil and gas production firms take in a production sharing contract with the government — could change to give contractors a greater portion of production.

Siswanto said the move was justified given Pertamina is a state-owned enterprise and its share was essentially going to the state as well.

Where previously Total and Inpex handed 70 percent of gas and 85 percent of oil and condensate output to the government, the split could change to 60-40, he said, so Pertamina, Inpex and Total would share 40 percent of output between them from 2018.

A spokesman for Total’s Indonesian unit was not immediately available to comment on the matter.

Earlier, Total’s Indonesian unit said the firm is in the process of scaling back drilling operations at Mahakam and expects to reduce the number of operating rigs from seven to three by the end of 2016.

“In terms of number of wells to be drilled this year it is around 107 and next year is around 70,” Total Indonesie spokesman Arividya Noviyanto told Reuters via e-mail.

Gas output from Mahakam could decline 9 percent to an estimated 1,494 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) in 2016 from a targeted 1,645 mmscfd this year, Noviyanto said, noting that these figures were subject to change.

Source: Reuters