Erick Thohir Ensures LNG Absorption For Domestic Needs

SOE Minister Erick Thohir/PHOTO VIA ANTARA

JAKARTA - Minister of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN), Erick Thohir, ensured that liquefied natural gas (LNG) will prioritize domestic needs. Erick gave a signal that PLN (State Electricity Company) would prioritize absorbing LNG.

Erick said the largest LNG producer in Indonesia is PT Pertamina (Persero). According to Erick, there has been a meeting between Pertamina and PLN to discuss the absorption of LNG.

"The majority of LNG producers are Pertamina. So yesterday there was a meeting between Pertamina and PLN. We are committed to domestic needs", he told reporters, Thursday, January 6.

According to Erick, the agreement between the two energy SOEs is a short-term solution to the LNG crisis that hit PLN.

"In the short term, the need for LNG supplied by PLN, which is supplied by Pertamina today, has decided that it will be prioritized for PLN. But there must be a contract signing, there must be certainty", he explained.

In the future, said Erick, we cannot make decisions immediately. According to him, all relevant parties need to sit down together to find a solution

"In the future, LNG is like the same thing, we have to sit together first. Because we can't do it piecemeal. Moreover, we know what gas is industrially, again there can be changes to this gas through coal gasification called DME", he said.

For information, just like coal, there is currently a liquefied natural gas crisis at PLN. In fact, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) requested that LNG produced in Indonesia be prioritized for domestic purposes first before being exported abroad.