Caltex gets thumb-ups from Bambang and Sonny

PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia (CPI) has received thumb-ups from Minister of Energy and Mining Susilo Bambang Ydhoyono and State Minister of Environmental Affairs Sonny Keraf from its recent confession that toxic waste really existed in the oil giant's Duri field, Neraca reported on Friday.

The two ministers said that CPI's recent acknowledgement that part of the waste resulted from the processing of the crude oil pumped out from the company's Duri oil field contained toxic substances should be appreciated and be followed by other oil and mining companies in the country.

"We should hide things that threaten the life of the people. And the admission of Caltex that there is hazardous waste in its field should be appreciated," Bambang said recently.

Sony also said he respected Caltex admission but it regretted that why such an acknowledgement only came after his office raised the environmental problem to the public. "But it does not matter? the most important thing for us is a fairness," he said.

Caltex recently admitted that part of the mineral waste from the production of crude oil in the company's Duri field in Riau contains the B-3 toxic waste. But the oil giant denied the newspaper reports that it had dumped the dangerous waste to the sea and locations outside the company's Duri oil field. "The toxic waste is still kept within the Duri field complex," the company's spokesman Poedyo Oetomo said last week. (*)