Pertamina Wants To Collect Foreign Oil Refineries To Fulfill National Needs

President Director of Pertamina, Nicke Widyawati. (Photo: Pertamina)

JAKARTA - PT Pertamina (Persero) has stated that it will increase exploration capacity in oil and gas blocks at home and abroad. This is to pursue a production target of 1 million barrels per day by 2023.

Pertamina President Director Nicke Widyawati said this target was assigned by the government. This year the production reaches 750 thousand barrels per day, with a total of 40 percent contributed by Pertamina.

Furthermore, Nicke said that starting in 2021, he would make a higher contribution. Given that this target must be achieved by 2023.

Nicke said that from within the country, the increase in production and oil and gas reserves would be carried out by maximizing existing and new oil and gas blocks. One of them, the Rokan Block, was recently transferred to this state-owned company.

The Rokan Block is targeted to increase production to 420 thousand barrels per day. Then, increase again to 1 million barrels per day in 2025.

"But this is not enough to meet domestic demand, so we are still importing upstream products," he said, in a virtual discussion, Tuesday, October 6.

Therefore, said Nicke, Pertamina will increase production from 14 assets abroad which are spread across Algeria, Malaysia, Iraq, Kanda, France, Italy, Nambia, Tanzania, Gabon, Nigeria, Colombia, Angola, Venezuela, and the United States.

Unfortunately, Nicke did not mention what the target was to increase production and oil reserves from these overseas assets. Even so, the number is expected to increase from the current total production of around 150 thousand barrels. Meanwhile, reserves reach 410 million barrels.

"Why is this important to do? The potential for domestic production is not sufficient, therefore Pertamina is making acquisitions abroad and bringing the oil inside. This is how we increase resilience from the crude side," he explained.

According to Nicke, the acquisition is needed to optimize domestic oil and gas production. This is because optimizing production takes time.

Nicke said, from the results of increased production in the existing oil and gas blocks, Pertamina is targeting refinery capacity to increase from around 1 million barrels per day to 1.8 million barrels per day.