Indonesia Is Called The Golden Places For Carbon Arrest And Storage Projects

Head of the Geological Agency of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Muhammad Wafid. (Doc. Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources)

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said Indonesia was a golden place for the Carbon Capture Storage (CCS) project.

Responding to this, the Head of the Geological Agency of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Muhammad Wafid said that the USGS statement was a great opportunity for Indonesia to contribute to efforts to overcome climate change through the capture and separation of CO2 gas and inject it back into the rock layer below the surface.

"CCS technology is nothing new. The concept is more or less the same as upstream oil and natural gas activities, namely the need for reservoir rocks in the form of oil and gas reservoirs or acquitable copies of which are CO2 storage areas and then cover rocks that encapsulate CO2 gas that have been injected so that they do not move or migrate anywhere," said Wafid, Saturday, July 27.

Therefore, Wafid continued, the government through the Regulation of the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Number 2 of 2023 has issued regulations on CCS/CCUS in upstream oil and gas business activities. This regulation is certainly a breath of fresh air for upstream oil and gas contractors and other stakeholders to be able to freely apply CCS/CCUS technology in Indonesia.

Wafid revealed that the Geological Agency has played an important role in exploring rock formations that become oil and gas reservoirs. Now the Geological Agency is faced with new challenges to be able to find and record rock formations that have great potential to store carbon.

"At this time the Geological Agency is conducting an inventory to calculate the potential of Carbon Capture Storage in Indonesia, especially in frontier sediment basins, which so far have not had significant upstream oil and gas activity," he said.

Wafid continued, the systematic field data collection which began with data collection in Java Island last year, then this year the activity will be carried out on the island of Sumatra and then will continue to be continued to other regions in Indonesia, it is hoped that it can complement data related to CCS potential in Indonesia which will eventually be displayed in the Atlas Potential CCS Indonesia.

Adding the Head of the Geological Agency, Earth Investigator of the Geological Survey Center, Andy Setyo Wibowo's Geological Agency said, CCS in the underground geological formation is not the only way to reduce Indonesia's greenhouse gas emissions but can be the best alternative in terms of capacity, security, cost and time.

"CCS technology is not something new in Indonesia and it is very possible to immediately implement CCS in subsurface geological formations and Indonesian sediment basins that have not produced great potential as a geological resource for carbon storage/CCS," concluded Andy.