Indonesia may seek 9 cargoes of overseas LNG H2

Indonesia may need to buy 9 LNG cargoes from overseas spot market in the second half of this year to fulfill its commitments to Bontang buyers, Minister of energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro said Wednesday.

?We are still counting the LNG shortage, but I think it will be around 9 cargoes,? said Purnomo.

Bontang LNG was forced to reschedule first quarter shipments to Japan and South Korea to the second semester of this year due to natural gas supply shortage to the plant. The shortage was due to declining natural gas production in some of East Kalimantan gas producers and delays in gas field development works. There is no information about the number of cargoes rescheduled.

An official at Indonesian upstream oil, gas watchdog BP Migas said that the actual number of LNG cargoes that must be bought from overseas would depend on East Kalimantan gas production. ?If gas production is improving, then Indonesia would need to buy less overseas cargoes,? said vice-chairman Kardaya Warnika. He did not give specific detail.

Another BP Migas official said that East Kalimantan gas production rate is improving. But he declined to give specific detail. Early this week East Kalimantan gas producer Total E&P Indonesie announced that its production had reached new peak of 2.7BCFD, or 300 MMCFD above its commitment to supply Bontang LNG plant. Other E. Kalimantan gas producers include Vico Indonesia and Unocal.

Badak NGL operates eight LNG trains in Bontang, producing around 22 million tons of LNG per year. (godang/alex)