Indonesia, not anymore oil exporting country in 10 years

Indonesia is projected to be kicked out of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in ten years time when Indonesia's crude oil production is only enough to meet domestic demand, according to the Research Institute at the Institute of Technology Bandung.

According to the head and secretary of the Research Institute, Prof. Dr. Aryadi Suwono, Indonesia's average domestic energy consumption is currently equivalent to 1.5 million barrels of crude oil per day, and in line with the increasing population and the improving standards of living, the energy consumption would continue to increase.

"The consumption of energy in our country very much depends on oil. At the same time, our oil reserves are depleting. If we cannot find ways to use energy economically, it is predicted that in ten years time, Indonesia will have to quit OPEC, and use its oil reserves for domestic consumption," Suwono said.

He said that Indonesia did not have many existing oil reserves, while at the same time, it is still difficult for oil companies to find new reserves.

He called on the government and other parties to pursue new comprehensive researches in cooperation with other countries, to find ways to find new reserves and also to use the energy economically.

Meanwhile, State Minister of Research and Technology A.S. Hikam said that the depleting oil reserves should encourage the country to find alternative energy, including using more coal energy.

Hikam said coal would be a potential alternative energy as the country had large reserves of coal, amounting to more than 36 billion tons of coal.

But Hikam called on private entities to help finance researches on alternative energy as the government had only limited budget for that. He noted that the government only allocated about Rp 1 billion to conduct researches on alternative energy. (*)