Govt to form team to renegotiate gas supply to Singapore

The government will renegotiate gas volume supply to Singapore due to gas shortage in domestic market, Minister Energy and Mineral Resources Darwin Saleh said on Wednesday.

He said that the negotiation should be carried out on a government-to-government rather than business-to-business basis. ?If we negotiate based on business-to-business mechanism, surely our proposal will be rejected,? he said during a hearing with the House of Representatives.

In the hearing, lawmakers lashed out the government?s energy policy which failed to give priority to domestic gas supply.

Meanwhile, upstream oil, gas regulator BPMIGAS? chairman R. Priyono told reporters that government will form the team to renegotiate the gas supply.

But he did not give further details.

Indonesia has been exporting natural gas to Singapore through pipelines since 2001 from West Natuna and since 2003 from Sumatra. (godang/bernard)