Minister plans new regulation on standards in upstream oil, gas sector

Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Ignasius Jonan is currently in the process of drafting a new ministerial regulation on standards to be adopted in the upstream oil and gas activities.

Director of Oil and Gas Environment and Engineering at the ministry, Patuan Alfon Simanjuntak said in a statement on Friday that the ministry is currently in the process of selecting which standards to be applied.

He said that aside from 3,000 standards identified by the ministry, there are another 8,000 standards suggested to be adopted in the new ministerial regulation.

Patuan said that the application of the standards in the upstream oil and gas activities hopefully can improve the quality of local manufactured goods used in the sector to be able to compete with foreign products as well as bolster the competency of human resources in the sector.

He said that among of the standards to be adopted by the new regulation include those set under the Indonesia National Standard (or SNI) including related to structures, pipelines, and equipment in the upstream sector.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak