Government likely to miss household gas pipelines target
Saturday, June 3 2017 - 03:13 AM WIB
The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources? plan to develop additional 19,000 household gas pipelines this year is likely to be missed, Kontan reported on Saturday.
The paper quoted Director of Oil and Gas Infrastructure Development and Planning at the ministry, Alimuddin Baso as saying that only 6,000 household gas pipelines are expected to be realized. ?The addition will not be much due to limited time for tender,? he said.
He said that state-owned oil and gas firm PT Pertamina could not realize the additional gas pipeline target, prompting the government to assign state-controlled gas distribution firm PT PGN Tbk to develop 6,000 gas pipelines for households in Musi Banyuasin, Mojokerto, Bandar Lampung, and at the Kemayoran residential area in Jakarta, all of which are PGN?s operating areas.
The 2017 state budget has set a target to develop gas pipelines for a total of 58,809 households in ten locations in a bid to push households to convert to natural gas from LPG. On May 9, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Ignasius Jonan said the ministry has decided to develop additional pipelines this for another 19,000 households.
The additional pipeline network will be funded by reallocating funds, worth about Rp 190 billion, which was initially dedicated for the development fuel storage tanks.
The government has been developing household gas pipeline networks funded by the state budget since 2009. As per 2016, household gas pipeline networks have been developed in 26 cities in 14 provinces, serving a total of 185,991 households. (*)