Indonesia's Oil And Gas Potential Is Still Tempting, SKK Migas Says World Oil And Gas Giants Will Explore This Year

JAKARTA - The Special Task Force for Upstream Oil and Gas Activities (SKK Migas) revealed that Indonesia is still an interesting area for oil and gas exploration activities, even in frontier areas and high risk areas.

Head of SKK Migas, Dwi Soetjipto, said that interest in conducting exploration activities at sea was carried out by Major International Oil & Gas Company (IOC) which emphasized that the potential of upstream oil and gas in Indonesia is still attractive to investors.

"Since 2022 the Special Task Force for Upstream Oil and Gas Activities (SKK Migas) and Cooperation Contract Contractors (KKKS) Harbour Energy have started drilling deep seas as well as playing openers in the Andaman area," he told the media, Saturday, August 5.

He continued, in 2023, it was Major IOC Eni's turn through Eni North Ganal Ltd to tax exploration wells in the deep sea, then several other KKKS had planned to tax exploration wells in the deep sea.

"Major IOC has proven their seriousness in working on high risk exploration potential, of course this shows that our investment appeal is still promising. This is certainly encouraging news, because the current potential for national upstream oil and gas is abundant in the deep sea," said Dwi Soetjipto.

Dwi further said that exploration in the deep sea is one of the focuses of finding oil and gas reserves in the future. This is in line with the efforts of SKK Migas to boost exploration activities to support the availability of oil and gas reserves to achieve the 2030 target, namely oil production 1 million barrels per day (BOPD) and gas 12 billion cubic feet per day (BSCFD).

It is known that Harbour Energy has started deep sea drilling as well as a play opener in the Andaman area through drilling Sumur Timpan-1 which resulted in significant gas discovery in these waters.

Then on July 21, 2023, Eni North Ganal Ltd succeeded in taxing the North-1 Gang Well at water depth of approximately 1,950 meters off the coast of Kutai Basin. This well has a strategic value because it is currently listed as a well with the deepest reservoir target compared to Eni's previous wells in Kutai Village and uses a Drill Ship, which reaches 4-5 billion rupiah per day.

Dwi said that the deep-sea drilling series in Indonesia would continue with the drilling of a number of other wells.

This year, Harbour Energy will drill 2 exploration wells as a continuation of gas discovery in the Timpan structure last year. Still in the same area, Mubadala also plans to drill 1 exploration well to prove the hydrocarbon potential in their working area in the Andaman Sea.

"This series of deep-sea drilling is carried out in the working area which is still in the exploration stage so that the costs incurred are still not necessarily re-obtained by investors," concluded Dwi.