BPMIGAS, JBIC sign MoU on gas-related business opportunities
Tuesday, June 28 2011 - 06:46 AM WIB
The MoU serves as a cooperation umbrella for exchange of views, sharing of expertise especially in gas-related business opportunities and the DoC serves as a foundation to carry out joint feasibility studies on gas development projects in Indonesia.
The surge of energy demand in parallel with the robust economic growth in Indonesia has made securing gas sources for the domestic need as an urgent issue on the national agenda. The MoU and DoC will allow Indonesia to further expand the total capacity of gas supply in Indonesia by utilizing the experiences and expertise from Japanese firms as the investors.
?We have confidence that JBIC with its long investment experience in Indonesia will be able to play a very important role in convincing Japanese big investors to develop the Indonesian up-stream oil and gas industry?s huge potential in the form of financing? said Priyono, the head of BPMIGAS in his speech.
Nobuyuki Higashi, the Head of Asia and Oceania Finance Department of JBIC in his speech said that the MOU will strengthen mutual cooperation between the Government of Indonesia and Japan in order to expand the total capacity of natural gas supply in Indonesia and thereby achieve stable supply of natural gas for Indonesian domestic markets. ?This cooperation will also be beneficial to Japanese firms as they will participate in gas related business opportunities in Indonesia? he said.
The MOU is a follow up on the Financial Policy Dialogue Framework established in February 2010 and the meeting held in August 2010 where the Government of Indonesia and JBIC shared a common understanding about the importance of evaluating how to optimize the overall supply chain, starting from upstream gas exploration to downstream gas distribution and IPP in contest of ?reconciling economic growth and environmental preservation?. It was then agreed to establish a comprehensive cooperation framework for the natural gas development to build up a business models that will materialize efficient supply chain.
?Under this framework, the individual projects will be promoted to the further expansion of the total capacity of gas supply, mainly from undeveloped small and medium sized gas fields in Indonesia, whose idea was proposed by Hoshi, the Deputy President of JBIC at the Second Infrastructure Summit held in 2006? Higashi said.
Priyono also said that this new business model that is being introduced will require investor and contractors to implement state-of-the-art technology in developing gas sources in Indonesia in order to fulfill the increasing domestic demand in the form of feedstock for domestic industries.
He expects that this model will generate significant multiplier effects to the domestic economy as it also marks a strong foundation for mutually beneficial relationship between Indonesian and Japanese banking industry and welcome the role of Indonesian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (KADIN Indonesia) and Universities to actively be involved in various project stages. ?I do believe this is the true meaning of national capacity building in knowledge, talent, technology as well as local goods and services quality? Priyono ended. (godang/giok)