Govt drafting LPG and oil fuel infrastructure roadmap for eastern Indonesia

The government is formulating a roadmap for the development of oil fuel and LPG infrastructures in eastern Indonesia for the period of 2016-2019 to ensure continued and reliable supply of the fuel in the region, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources said in a statement on Friday.

As part of the formulation process, a meeting was held in Makassar, South Sulawesi on Friday, attended by Director General of Oil and Gas IGN Wiratmaja and officials from the Coordinating Ministry of the Economy, the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas), downstream regulator BPH Migas, heads of mining and energy offices from eastern Indonesian provinces and state owned oil and gas firm PT Petamina to discuss the roadmap.

The first draft of the roadmap indicates that the eastern Indonesia region need new oil fuel storage facilities with a combined capacity of 805,000 kl with an estimated investment of Rp 600 billion and new LPG storage facilities with combined capacity of 32,500 MT with an estimated investment of Rp 3.1 trillion.

Wiratmaja said many people in eastern Indonesia often face difficulties to get oil fuel and LPG supplies due to the lack of infrastructures. Many small islands in the East Nusatenggara province, for instance, do not have oil depots that they often experience lack of supplies.

He admitted that investors are not interested to build infrastructures in the eastern Indonesia areas due to low investment returns. Still, the government will offer the projects to private investors It they are not interested, the government will build them itself using funds accumulated from saved oil fuel subsidies.

Editing by Johannes Simbolon