Despite huge supply, gas consumption in transportation sector declines
Tuesday, March 14 2017 - 11:08 AM WIB
Petromindo|Khalsa
Despite huge gas allocation for the land transportation sector, consumption of compressed natural gas by motorists, public buses, and other vehicles remain low and has in fact declined in the first two months of this year, undermining the government?s fuel oil to gas conversion program.
This was said by Compressed Natural Gas and City Gas Manager at state-owned oil and gas firm PT Pertamina, Ryrien Marisa on the sidelines of the 11thNatural Gas Vehicles & Infrastructure Indonesia Forum & Exhibition in Jakarta on Monday.
She said that realized gas consumption in the land transportation sector last year slightly increased to 3.8 mmscfd from 3.6 mmscfd in the previous year, but as per February of this year consumption rate weakened to 2.8 mmscfd, much lower compared to the allocation of 25 mmscfd.
Ryrien said that buses in Jakarta operated by Transjakarta accounted for about 80 percent of gas consumption in the land transportation sector. However, some of the Transjakarta buses have recently switched to using diesel fuel, causing the gas consumption rate in the sector to decline to 2.8 mmscfd as per February of this year.
Experts have said that the lack of gas refill stations has been seen as one of the factors discouraging motorists from switching to compressed natural gas. According to Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, there are only 68 gas refill stations in the country, much lower than 470 in Thailand and 2,350 in Iran.
The fuel to gas conversion program can be successful if more motorists switch to compressed natural gas as the number of cars is far greater than the number of buses.
Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Ignasius Jonan acknowledged the slow progress in the development of new gas refill stations in the country, which has become a major obstacle to the fuel to gas conversion program.
To help resolve the problem, Ignasius said on Monday that he would soon issue a new ministerial regulation requiring some 5,000 fuel refill stations in the country to install gas dispensers.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak