Expert Says Optimising Mature Wells Could Help Boost Pertamina’s Production

Jakarta (ANTARA) – Energy expert Ali Ahmudi Achyak has welcomed PT Pertamina Hulu Energi’s (PHE) efforts, as Pertamina’s upstream subholding, to manage all its oil and gas working areas through exploration and development of new wells as well as the optimisation of mature wells to help increase production.

“I think PHE continues to improve the management of all its working areas, including to boost production. Our reserves are indeed becoming more limited, but opportunities remain, including through mature wells,” he said in Jakarta on Wednesday.

Optimising mature wells could help increase oil and gas production in support of national energy security, he said, particularly given PHE’s increasingly reliable upstream management and improving technological capabilities.

Ali, executive director of the Centre for Energy Security Studies for Sustainable Development (Puskep) at the University of Indonesia (UI), said that tapping the potential of mature wells presented an opportunity to support PHE’s performance.

“This would of course be alongside continued exploration and development of new wells, as well as the empowerment of community-operated wells. It is a good approach for PHE to meet its targets,” he said in a statement.

Ali said exploiting mature wells was not as straightforward as working on new oil and gas wells. Production from optimised mature wells was also much lower than from new wells.

Using older technology as output declines could also make operations uneconomic.

By contrast, new technology could help reduce labour costs, he said, potentially making wells that were previously uneconomic viable again.

He added that, as a way of reducing costs, management could be handed to local governments, such as those in Riau and South Sumatra. The output could then be sold to Pertamina and counted as part of oil and gas lifting.

“This is an effort to meet production targets. Any effort to manage mature wells deserves recognition,” he said.

Earlier, House of Representatives Commission VI deputy chair Andre Rosiade also praised the performance of PHE Offshore Northwest Java (PHE ONWJ) during a field visit on Sunday (4 October 2026), when he saw the condition and performance of a well that has been operating since 1969 in the waters off northern Java, West Java.

He said the field visit showed that PHE ONWJ was performing well: despite the well’s age and a change in operator, its productivity had been maintained.