Govt to export gas from Natuna D-Alpha

Most of the gas produced from the Natuna D-Alpha Block in Riau will be exported, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister (ESDM) Darwin Saleh says.

“Based on the law, if the resource contains a huge amount of gas, the government can export it after some of the gas has been provided for domestic needs,” he said, adding that Natuna D-Alpha had huge gas reserves, so the government had to export some.

The block will begin to produce gas commercially in 2017.

Darwin said that besides the regulation, the domestic market had a limited ability to absorb the gas, which had a large scale and long-term cultivation like Natuna.

“Natuna D-Alpha is now looking at the long-term export market and export guarantees lasting up to 25 years, with contracts to be extended whenever necessary,” he said.

Located off Riau Islands, the Natuna D-Alpha block has around 222 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas reserves, of which about 46 tcf are thought to be commercially recoverable.

Natuna D-Alpha is among the biggest reserves in Asia, and held more than a third of Indonesia's commercially recoverable reserves of 106 tcf, as of the end of 2007.