Pertamina foresees gas as dominant business in future

State-owned oil and gas company Pertamina projected that its gas business will become dominant in the future on rising domestic demand from industries and power plants.

Pertamina President Director Dwi Soetjipto said in a statement Sunday that to anticipate growing gas demand at home in the future, the company is aggressively building necessary gas infrastructure facilities.

Pertamina, for instance, is currently in the process of developing a number of LNG receiving terminals in Java and eastern part of Indonesia, to support existing LNG receiving facilities.

Its subsidiary PT Pertamina Gas is preparing to develop gas transmission pipelines in Java, as well as gas pipelines linking Arun in Aceh and the Medan Industrial Zone in North Sumatra.

?Expansion of the gas infrastructure networks is quite necessary because Pertamina is determined to become the main pillar in realizing the national energy independency. In line with rising gas demand both from PLN (state power utility) and industries, Pertamina must be able to full the national gas requirement both from domestic and overseas sources,? Dwi explained.

Dwi said that Pertamina currently produces 1.63 billion cubic feet per day, and has obtained gas pipeline allocations such as from Jambaran-Tiung Biru, and Terang Sirasun Batur, as well as in the form of domestic LNG from Bontan and Tangguh. From overseas sources, Pertamina has obtained LNG supply certainty from Cheniere Corpus Christi in the US as much as 1.5 million tons per year starting 2019 under a 20-year contract, and from Africa as much as 1 million tons per year starting 2020 for a 20-year period.

Meanwhile, Director of New and Renewable Energy at Pertamina Yenni Andayani said that the company was currently in the process of negotiation with a number of global LNG producers to help further increase domestic LNG supply in the future to meet rising demand.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak