Bahlil Threatens To Revoke Unoperative Oil And Gas Well Permits

Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Bahlil Lahadalia (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Bahlil Lahadalia threatened to revoke a number of inactive oil and gas well permits.

Bahlil said, while serving as Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, he knew that Indonesia had more than 44,900 oil wells and productive wells, only 16,500 unproduced wells and 5,000 unproduced wells.

Bahlil said, from the investigation, the most unemployed wells were held by state-owned state-owned oil and gas company, Pertamina.

"I broke down again 5 thousand idle wells with more concessions? It turned out that the SOEs called Pertamina. Then, I asked why it wasn't carried out, a-o-o," said Bahlil, quoted Thursday, October 10.

Based on this response, Bahlil said that he did not rule out the possibility of revoking the idle well management permit held by Pertamina.

"I said that if it looks like there is a second stage IUP revocation, it seems like yesterday we revoked 2,018 IUPs, now this seems to have the potential for us to arrange wells that are not carried out by KKKS, including BUMN," continued Bahlil.

Bahlil said, with the withdrawal of idle wells from Pertamina, the government will offer existing wells to KKKS who are interested so that domestic oil leasing can continue to increase.

"We will take over to offer it to the company who is able to increase our lifting. Don't hold it, we need the state. We are indeed a priority for SOEs, but we don't just have horse glasses because SOEs have their permits taken to sleep. The state does not need a permit sleep, the state needs production," explained Bahlil.

Furthermore, Bahlil said that currently the government is encouraging KKKS to intervene in technology on Indonesian oil wells. He gave an example of the interence carried out by ExxonMobil which was able to increase its lifting to 150,000 BOPDs with Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) technology.

With this technology, he said, it can increase lifting by 20 percent.

"If this 600,000 times 20 percent, we can get 120,000 barrels and we have collaborated with several companies from America, China, one of the technological interventions is EOR," said Bahlil.