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ndonesia, Southeast Asia’s main oil producer, aims to reap additional crude oil output of around 121,000 barrels per day (bpd) by the end of 2013 from several planned drilling activities on developing basins and work-over campaigns on mature fields.

The country’s upstream oil and gas regulatory special task force SKKMigas head, Rudi Rubiandini, said that around 1,178 development wells would be drilled this year by oil and gas contractors.

“We hope drilling at the wells will generate 75,044 bpd of oil and 587 million metric standard cubic feet per day [mmscfd] of natural gas by the end of this year,” Rudi told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

In addition, the agency also aimed to implement work-over campaigns and well services on at least 1,904 existing oil fields in the country, which is expected to boost oil output by 46,647 bpd and gas output by 351 mmscfd.

Rudi, who is the former deputy energy and mineral resources minister, said that in total, all the projects would contribute 14 percent to Indonesia’s overall oil production target and 11 percent to its projected gas output this year.

Indonesia, a former Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member, has been struggling to halt the dwindling oil output due to aging wells and the lack of new significant discoveries in the past several years.

Last year, the country produced only around 860,000 bpd of oil, a significant decrease from the original target of 930,000 bpd as specified in the 2012 state budget, despite having drilled 840 development wells and working over 740 existing wells.

Both projects contributed 89,500 bpd of crude oil or around 10 percent to total oil production last year. The projects also generated an additional gas production of 820 mmscfd.

With a declining oil production rate of around 3.5 percent annually, Southeast Asia’s largest economy aims to see its average daily oil output reach 900,000 bpd by the end of this year, as well as achieve 1.36 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (mboepd) of natural gas.

SKKMigas, which was formed to temporarily replace the now-defunct BPMigas following a surprise court decision in November last year, has proposed that the government lower this year’s oil and gas target to around 850,000 bpd and 1.24 mboepd of gas, respectively.

However, the government has yet to revise the oil and gas production targets as discussions to amend the 2013 state budget usually take place between March and April each year.

The interim regulator has also predicted that state revenues from the oil and gas sector this year would decrease to around US$28 billion instead of the initial state budget target of $31.7 billion.

Amid dwindling oil production, soaring crude oil prices led to Indonesia reaping $36 billion in oil and gas revenue last year.

In a bid to unearth new hydrocarbon reserves, SKKMigas also announced on Wednesday that it would gear up drilling activities on the exploration wells of around 258 basins as well as launch an 18,752-kilometer, 2-D seismic survey and a 22,298-square-kilometer, 3-D survey.

Last year, the country drilled as many as 119 exploration wells, the highest amount of explorations in Indonesia in the past 10 years, according to SKKMigas.

Of those 119 wells, 52 were reported to possess total reserves of 541 million barrels of oil as well as 5.4 trillion cubic feet of gas.

—JP/ Amahl S. Azwar