Presidential Advisor Arifin Panigoro Dies at 76

english.jpnn.com, JAKARTA - Arifin Panigoro, a member of the Presidential Advisory Council (Watimpres), who was also an oil entrepreneur, has died at the age of 76.

Arifin took his last breath while in intensive care at a hospital in the United States on Sunday (27/2) at 02.29 local time.

The Gorontalo native was the founder and owner of Medco Energy, the largest private oil and gas mining company in Indonesia.

He started his career as an electrical installation contractor. He founded the Medco Group, which started as a private contractor company providing onshore oil and gas drilling services, in 1980.

One of the milestones in Medco's history was buying Stanvac, which later changed its name to Expan.

Currently, Medco is working on various upstream industrial businesses in oil and gas exploration and production, copper mining, gold mining, and downstream industries in power generation.

Arifin was the 47th richest person in Indonesia according to Forbes.

In his political career, Arifin was known to be close to college students.