Will Re-Auction WK Termination, Ministry Of Energy And Mineral Resources Pede Can Add Oil And Gas Production

Refinery illustration (Photo: antara)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) will conduct a re-auction for the Oil and Gas Working Area (WK Migas) whose contract has expired, or the termination of the oil and gas WK to be approved.

Director General of Oil and Gas at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Tutuka Ariadji, said this was one of the efforts to pursue the oil production target of 1 million barrels by 2030.

"WK Migas termination has been evaluated in recent years, and we hope that after further data studies are carried out and auctioned again, it can increase national oil and gas production," said Tutuka, quoted on Monday, October 23.

Tutuka said there were 50 oil and gas termination blocks, which were the total accumulation of oil and gas contract terminations from 2020-2023, with work contracts from 2008 to 2015. However, he said that not all of the termination oil and gas blocks would be auctioned back.

"We are currently evaluating and we add data and then we will re-auction even though not all of the 50 will be auctioned back. We certainly see everywhere that if it is still interesting, it still has the potential to be developed," he explained.

Tutuka said there were two things that caused the termination of the Migas WK, namely firstly the automatic termination, where the exploration deadline had passed the agreed upon. And the second is voluntary termination, because in the oil and gas industry there is always uncertainty.

"Although a geological study of reservoirs has been conducted, geophysics, there is always uncertainty that causes potential resources to be used as reserves, it is said that when they were small or not, or maybe it was not economical so that the contractor did not continue," he explained.

Furthermore, Tutuka hopes that the termination of WK Migas which will be auctioned again will have a big impact on additional Indonesia's oil production in the future. He gave an example of the Andaman 3 oil and gas block returned by Repsol, need further study and additional data from the sub-surface team, so that in the next few years it can be proven to increase national oil production.

As long as possible, the ESDM ementrian targets to conduct an auction of 10 termination WKs in 2023 and will add 3 WK by the end of this year.

"We have targeted 10 WK and we will offer three more at the end of this year and early next year we will convey it but for those who join the study it can be started to be done," concluded Tutuka.