Government plans virtual gas pipelines in four clusters

The government plans to develop virtual pipelines in regions in eastern part of Indonesia where physical gas pipelines are non-existent.

This was said by Director General of Oil and Gas at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources IGN Wiratmaja Puja in a statement on Wednesday.

Virtual pipelines are substitute to physical pipelines that distribute gas via land or sea transport. They replicate the continuous flow of energy via transportation logistics using trucks or ships.

He said virtual pipelines will be developed in four clusters including cluster I (Papua and West Papua), cluster II (Maluku, North Maluku, North Sulawesi, and Central Sulawesi), cluster III (East Nusa Tenggara/NTT, West Nusa Tenggara/NTB, and South Sulawesi), and cluster IV (Natuna region and West Kalimantan).

Wiratmaja said that the government will hold tender for the development of the virtual pipelines and would require state-owned firm including power company PT PLN to be included in the consortiums winning the projects.

Wiratmaja said that cluster I requires power plants with combined capacity of 630 MW, with gas volume requirement of 138 mmscfd cluster II requires 878 MW power plants and gas supply of 230 mmscfd, cluster III 1,750 MW and gas supply volume of 283 mmscfd, and cluster IV 495 MW and gas supply volume of 49 mmscfd.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak