Meeting the 2023 Target, There will be Additional Oil and Gas Reserves of Up to 599.08 MMBOE

Crude oil illustration (photo: unsplash)

JAKARTA - The Special Task Force for Upstream Oil and Gas Business Activities (SKK Migas) noted that there were additional reserves of 599.08 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMBOE) until November 2023. This addition came from the approval of 33 Plan of Development (POD) submissions, and its kind.

Deputy for Exploration, Development, and Management of SKK Migas Working Areas, Benny Lubiantara, said that from the 33 PODs there were investment commitments for capital expenditure (capex) and operational expenditure (opex) and the like reaching around 10.385 billion US dollars or the equivalent of IDR 156 trillion.

If we also include abandon site & restoration (ASR) funds which reached 384 million US dollars, the total amount reaches US$ 10.769 billion US dollars.

"Overall, applications for POD and the like in 2023 will reach 40 proposals with the overall potential for additional oil and gas reserves reaching around 788.29 MMBOE," said Benny in his written statement, Saturday, December 16.

With these additional reserves, SKK Migas recorded an oil and gas reserve replacement ratio (RRR) reaching 104.5 percent. In this way, this year's RRR target has been met until November 2023.

Benny said that the prognosis for achieving RRR until December 2023 is projected to reach around 137.5 percent after the approval of OPL Ubi Sikladi, OPL Riau Waterflood, POD I Revised Kaliberau Dalam, OPLL Jambi Merang, OPL Karangan Barat and POD I Maha.

"Significant additions will come from POD I Maha with operator ENI West Ganal in the form of gas amounting to 495 BSCF (gross gas) until 2037," he said.

Meanwhile, since 2018, SKK Migas has succeeded in exceeding the RRR target of 100 percent every year. Benny explained that the projected RRR in 2023 is around 137.5 percent. Starting from 2018, SKK Migas for six consecutive years has exceeded the RRR target of above 100 percent.

One of the keys to increasing oil and gas reserves that can be produced is to encourage every oil and gas discovery to be able to carry out a plan of development (POD) quickly.

Based on data for 2018-2023, said Benny, SKK Migas could get an average RRR of 162 percent. "The data shows that SKK Migas has succeeded in increasing the RRR by around 62 percent higher than the target," said Benny.

SKK Migas data shows that the RRR achievement from 2013 to 2017 reached around 64 percent with details of RRR in 2013 at 74 percent, 2014 at 67 percent, 2015 at 60 percent, 2016 at 64 percent, and in 2017 at 55 percent.

Since the transformation of SKK Migas was carried out in 2019, to date the RRR achievement continues to be above 100 percent. This shows the transformation of upstream oil and gas that has been outlined in Indonesia Oil & Gas (IOG) 4.0 in order to have a positive impact on increasing the competitiveness of the national upstream oil and gas industry.

To support the increasing availability of oil and gas energy sources, continued Benny, SKK Migas continues to encourage a massive exploration program followed by an accelerated POD program for each discovery of new reserves.

According to him, as long as new oil and gas reserves are discovered, and SKK Migas is willing to encourage the transformation from reserves to ready for production through POD, then at that point oil and gas in Indonesia will not run out and will continue to exist.

SKK Migas also continues to increase investment in the exploration sector. Because, of the 128 basins, only 20 basins are producing. This means that the potential is still promising.