Indonesia Drills First 'Unconventional' Well, Yields 500 bpd
The government is beginning to reap the rewards of developing unconventional oil and gas (MNK). The first well drilled in the Rokan Working Area has been recorded as producing approximately 500 barrels of oil per day (bpd).
Deputy Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Yuliot Tanjung stated that the government, together with the Special Task Force for Upstream Oil and Gas Business Activities (SKK Migas), is currently accelerating the completion of the regulatory framework to support the implementation of unconventional oil and gas. According to him, SKK Migas is targeting the regulation to be completed by the end of June 2026, so that the development can begin in early July.
“SKK Migas has requested that, if possible, the regulatory framework be completed by the end of this June and implemented in early July. So, we are currently racing against time,” he said at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources in Jakarta on Friday (5/6/2026).
At the same event, Head of SKK Migas Djoko Siswanto revealed that the drilling of the first unconventional oil and gas well had been successfully carried out and showed promising results. “Yesterday, just one well was drilled, and it produced 500 barrels per day. Later, many wells will be drilled, and of course, once the wells are completed within Pertamina, production will reach thousands of barrels per day,” he explained.
He added that the proposed contract scheme for MNK is currently being discussed with the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources. SKK Migas hopes the discussions can be completed soon via a Ministerial Decree that is being finalised. “Currently, Pertamina is about to submit a more profitable production sharing contract. We discussed this from the morning with the Deputy Minister so that Pertamina can submit based on the Ministerial Decree that is being discussed, hopefully finishing today,” he said.
Previously, PT Pertamina (Persero) announced the discovery of significant oil potential from the Unconventional Oil and Gas project in the Rokan Working Area. This find is one of the largest in the last ten years. Pertamina Vice President Director Oki Muraza stated that through PT Pertamina Hulu Rokan (PHR), the company successfully discovered an oil potential of 724 million barrels from one of the MNK structures in the region. “In the upstream oil and gas sector, we managed to achieve the largest discovery in the last 10 years. We successfully found unconventional oil and gas, or MNK, in the Rokan Working Area with a potential discovery reaching 724 million barrels,” Oki said during a hearing with House of Representatives Commission VI on Wednesday (19/11/2025). According to Oki, this potential currently comes from just one structure, while the opportunities for unconventional oil and gas in Indonesia are much larger. He also noted that this discovery is the largest MNK find within the Pertamina group.