Susilo officiates 13 oil and gas fields
Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post/Jambi
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is reiterating calls for energy conservation and diversification amid the country's steadily declining oil production, saying that without such efforts, Indonesia will face a serious energy crisis eventually.
For a long time people seemed to consider the mineral resources here unlimited, the President said in his speech at a ceremony to launch 13 oil and gas projects in Jambi on Friday.
"In fact, if there are no new discoveries, the oil reserves will run out in 18 years," said Susilo.
"We have to start thinking now how to maintain the sustainability of production."
The government urges the use gas and coal, which are available in abundance in the country, as well as bio-diesel, he said. Energy conservation is also needed, as Indonesians are used to spending more fuel than necessary due to the low prices.
The new projects, which are estimated to add 53,700 barrels of oil per day to the country's crude and condensate outputs with investments reaching US$1.2 billion, were important to increase production, he said.
With the production of giant fields like Cepu and Jeruk in East Java, as well as other smaller fields, Indonesia will be able to slow down the production's natural decline.
"Within two or three years, hopefully our production will rise to between 1.25 million barrels per day (bpd) and 1.3 bpd," he said.
Indonesia, where 90 percent of the producing fields have passed their peak production, is seeing a decline in output of about 5 percent annually.
The country's output has plunged from 1.52 million bpd in 1999 to an estimated 1.075 million bpd on average throughout this year, due mostly to limited exploration and aging oil fields.
The projects launched comprise the development of 12 oil fields, including those of large multinational oil companies such as BP, Total and PetroChina and a pipeline of state oil and gas firm PT Pertamina.
The fields started production between July last year and November this year. The bigger production outputs include Pertamina and PetroChina's Joint Operation Body (JOB) in Salawati, Papua, with 15,000 bpd, and in Salawati, Papua, with 12,900 bpd.
PetroChina's Betara III field in Jambi will produce 9,500 bpd and the equivalent of 16,500 barrels of oil per day in the form of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), while Kodeco's KE-40 field in Bangkalan, East Java, and Pertamina-Medco's JOB in Tiaka, Central Sulawesi, will produce 5,000 bpd each.
Aside from producing oil, the fields will also generate 1.53 billion standard cubic feet of natural gas per day, of which most comes from Total's Peciko Phase IV field in Kutai Kertanegara, East Kalimantan.
Pertamina's planned pipeline, with an investment of $16.2 million, will connect and channel 15,000 bpd of oil from its field in Tambun, West Java, to Cilamaya in the province.