Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The soaring world price of crude oil, which is now almost approaching US$ 90 per barrel, has also had an impact on increasing investment, especially in the Indonesian upstream oil and gas sector.
The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) revealed that domestic oil and gas (oil and gas) investment reached US$ 11.8 billion or the equivalent of IDR 185.5 trillion (assuming an exchange rate of IDR 15,724 per US$) as of September 2023.
Director General of Oil and Gas (Diren Migas) of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Tutuka Ariadji, said that investment in the oil and gas sector continues to soar at this time due to the incessant drilling of oil and gas wells in the country.
“As of September, absorption (investment) has been around 75%. That means around US$ 11.8 billion. The target of the target, the total is around US$ 15.6 billion. So, it’s quite good if I look at it. Indeed, the drive is the main “That’s drilling, yes,” explained Tutuka to CNBC Indonesia in the Energy Corner program, Tuesday (17/10/2023).
He said, until September 2023 as many as 500 oil and gas wells had been drilled.
Tutuka said this number was higher compared to the number of drilling last year.
“We have drilled around 500 wells, and this is an increase from the previous year,” he added.
Even so, Tutuka said, exploration must still continue, one of which is by re-auctioning the 50 working areas (WK) or oil and gas blocks that were terminated during 2020-2023. This was done to increase the contribution to domestic oil and gas production in the future.
“And also what we need to encourage is that I also identified that exploration needs to be carried out. So with the return of these 50 blocks, we will encourage four more to be explored. So this exploration will be even more massive,” he said.
As is known, global crude oil prices opened stronger in trading on Tuesday (17/10/2023) after a decline in previous trading of 1%.
Today, Tuesday (17/10/2023), the price of WTI crude oil opened up 0.46% at US$ 87.06 per barrel, likewise Brent crude oil opened up 0.29% to US$ 89. 91 per barrel.
Meanwhile, upstream oil and gas investment in 2023 is targeted to reach US$ 15.54 billion.
However, previously the Special Task Force for Upstream Oil and Gas Business Activities (SKK Migas) noted that the realization of upstream oil and gas investment in semester I-2023 only reached US$ 5.7 billion or still below the investment target in semester I-2023 which reached US$ 7.4 billion.
“Investment in upstream oil and gas is hampered by wells, there are projects that are not yet onstream. Our outlook (investment target) is US$ 15.6 billion with existing calculations and forecasts with current parameters in line with targets at the start of this year,” said Deputy Head of SKK Migas Nanang Abdul Manaf in the Upstream Oil and Gas Performance Press Conference Semester I-2023, Tuesday (18/7/2023).
With regard to oil lifting or ready-to-sell oil production, this year the government is targeting oil lifting to reach 660,000 barrels per day (bpd).
The realization of oil lifting in semester I-2023 reached 615,500 barrels per day (bpd) or lower than the target in semester I-2023 of 618,700 bpd. Meanwhile, the realization of oil lifting in semester I-2023 was higher than the oil lifting achieved in semester I-2023 which reached 614,500 bpd.
Meanwhile, for gas lifting or gas lines until the end of 2023, the target is to reach 5,326 MMSCFD. As of semester I-2023, gas lifting reached 5,308 MMSCFD, lower than the target in semester I-2023 of 5,322 MMSCFD.
Gas lifting in semester I-2023 was also recorded to be lower than semester I-2022 which reached 5,326 MMSCFD.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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