National Energy Council Supports The Utilization Of Household Natural Gas And PGN Group Industry In Batam City

Photo: Doc. PGN

PT Perusahaan Gas Negara Tbk (PGN) as Pertamina Gas Subholding with its subsidiary PT Gagas Energi Indonesia (Gagas) received a working visit from the National Energy Council (DEN) to Batam City. The working visit was carried out by the DEN as a form of supervision of the implementation of the policy of utilizing natural gas for the household and industrial sectors in Batam city.

The working visit was led by Dr. Ir. Eri Purnomohadi, MM, a member of the DEN Elements of Consumer Stakeholders; Ambassador Dr. (HC) Yusra Khan, SH, a member of the DEN Elements of Interest in Environmental Affairs and Dr. Ir. As Nadio Lasman, a member of the DEN Elements of Conflict of Technology. In addition, it was also attended by Laode Sulaeman, ST, MT, Director of Planning and Development of Oil and Gas Infrastructure, Directorate General of Oil and Gas as well as representatives of BPH Migas, Idham Baridwan as Coordinator of Account Settings, Tariffs and Natural Gas Prices through Pipes.

Eri Purnomohadi as the group leader in his speech conveyed the purpose and purpose of a working visit, one of which was to encourage the implementation and utilization of natural gas for households and industries in Batam city.

The DEN delegation was received directly by PGN Head Area Batam Wendi Purwanto and Division Head City Gas Sales & Customer Management PGN Ade Firman Hayatul Kalam. Wendy explained the various benefits that will be felt directly by both the Government and the community regarding the use of natural gas for households. Utilization of natural gas for households will help the Government to reduce subsidies and import LPG for households. In addition, the use of natural gas will also bring efficiency to users.

If currently the price of non-subsidized 12 kg (or around 15 m3) cylinder gas in the Riau Islands is IDR 206,000 per cylinder, then if you use a household gas network with a selling price of IDR 10,000 m3 and the assumption that 1 household uses gas on average of 10-12 m3 per month. Users will already get about 30 percent efficiency from the use of natural gas.

During the visit, the group also made visits to two natural gas customers from the household sector in Housing and natural gas customers from the industrial sector who were served using the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) or Gaslink by Gagas in the Batam City Batu Aji area.

Currently, PGN Batam Area serves around 5,793 household customers, 64 small customers and 100 industrial or commercial customers.

"As of August 2023, PGN Batam Area has distributed around 92.10 BBTUD of natural gas for the household sector, small customers to industry," Wendi explained, in his statement, Se;asa September 19.

Regarding the use of natural gas for household customers, PGN always supports the National Strategic Program as stated in the Presidential Attachment No. 58 of 2017 concerning the Development of Household Natural Gas Networks. To date, PGN has served around 835 thousand Household Customers with a total volume of 0.10 BBTUD spread across 73 cities/regencies.

Separately, the President Director of Gagas, Muhammad Hardiansyah, conveyed Gagas' commitment to support the expansion of natural gas utilization for the industrial and commercial sector through the beyond pipeline method, including in Batam city using Gaslink. This commitment is directly proportional to the increase in gas distribution through CNG in Batam City.

"The distribution of natural gas through the beyond pipeline method in Batam city is currently supplied by SPBG Batam which has been operated by Gagas since 2017. The utilization and number of natural gas customers served by SPBG Batam continues to increase. Even until August 2023, the distribution of Gaslink in Batam city has reached 0.24 BBTUD or around 15% when compared to the distribution of Gaslink in 2022 which only reached 0.16 BBTUD," explained Hardiansyah.