Government to issue national standard in calculating oil reserves

The government will soon issue a national standard or SNI in calculating the country's oil and gas reserves so that both the government and oil and gas production sharing contractors will have the same method in determining the volume of the oil and gas reserves in the existing oil and gas concession areas, Investor Daily reported on Wednesday.

The director of Gas and Oil Institute (Lemigas), Evita H. Legowo said in Jakarta on Tuesday that the agency, in cooperation with the oil and gas directorate general and the national standardization agency (BSN), was still formulating the right method to be used as the standard in calculating oil and gas reserves.

He said that with the standardization, all related parties such as the government and production-sharing contractors would have the same guideline and method in calculating the existing oil and gas reserves.

At present, according to him, the government and production-sharing contractors use their own methods in the calculation of the oil and gas reserves. The use of different methods can mislead the actual amount of the oil and gas reserves in the country.

Indonesia has oil reserves of about 9.5 billion barrels. The use of the new standard could lead to the increase or decrease in the estimated oil reserves, Evita said. (*)