Indonesia Opens Options for Oil Imports from Brunei Darussalam
Indonesia is committed to strengthening national energy resilience through diversification of oil supplies. One approach involves exploring cooperation with Brunei Darussalam. With Brunei’s oil production capacity reaching approximately 100,000 to 110,000 barrels per day, Indonesia is opening the possibility of exploring crude oil imports from the nation as one option to maintain stability of domestic energy supply.
This was disclosed by Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia during a strategic bilateral meeting with Deputy Minister (Energy) at the Prime Minister’s Office of Brunei Darussalam, Dato Seri Paduka Awang Haji Mohamad Azmi Bin Haji Mohd Hanifah. The high-level meeting took place on the sidelines of the Indo Pacific Energy Security Ministerial and Business Forum (IPEM) in Tokyo, Japan, on Sunday, 15 March local time.
“Exploration of crude oil imports from Brunei is one of the strategic options we are promoting, whilst ensuring the availability of national energy supply remains in a secure condition,” said Bahlil according to an official statement.
Bahlil added that Brunei is also interested in technology applied by the national oil and gas company PT Pertamina (Persero), which utilises Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) technology to increase oil production from mature oil wells. He expressed readiness to facilitate Brunei in conducting cooperation with Indonesia’s state-owned energy companies in the energy sector.
“We are ready to cooperate for sharing experience and knowledge to discuss technical matters. I will gladly prepare this to share and learn,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dato Seri Paduka Awang Haji Mohamad Azmi expressed his country’s interest in the EOR technology. Brunei has so far been using water flooding technology and is ready to utilise chemical flooding such as EOR to increase its oil production.
“We are interested in Indonesia because there is EOR technology that has already been applied. We have been using water flooding and we believe we can learn from Indonesia to operate EOR,” he explained.
Both nations utilised this opportunity to discuss concrete steps, ranging from strengthening oil supply resilience to opportunities for collaboration on renewable energy development.
The meeting is said to mark a new chapter. Brunei, which has long been known as one of the leading oil and gas producers in Southeast Asia, is now seriously considering steps toward Indonesia’s energy transformation. The Brunei delegation expressed interest in learning from Indonesia’s experience in developing energy supply diversification, particularly from renewable energy sources.
“This is a golden opportunity for regional collaboration. Brunei sees that Indonesia has progressed further and in a more structured manner in developing power generation from various energy sources, whereas Brunei utilises 99% of gas for its power generation and wants to reduce the proportion of gas used for generation,” said the ESDM Minister following the meeting in Tokyo.
Going forward, Brunei is preparing to increase its installed power generation capacity to five times its current capacity. The country wants to add 4 gigawatts (GW) from the existing installed capacity of 1 GW.
On the other hand, Indonesia is also promoting broader investment opportunities for Brunei through the Indonesian Economic Development Corridor (IEDC) framework. Through this scheme, Brunei is invited to participate in developing electricity infrastructure, particularly in remote areas that have natural resource potential but still require energy infrastructure support.
The cooperation is also designed to include strengthening human resources capacity through capacity building programmes, ranging from upstream oil and gas sectors to renewable energy auditor training.