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lthough his tenure as interim energy and mineral resources minister remains uncertain, Luhut Pandjaitan said Thursday he
would speed up the completion of 10 priority programs in order to boost the country’s sluggish oil and gas sector.

Some items on the priority list, such as the submission of a draft bill on the revision of the Oil and Gas Law, are specifically targeted to be completed within the next two weeks.

“So we have decided on 10 priority oil and gas items out of 32 that actually need to be resolved. The oil and gas director general and the ministry’s secretary general believe that these 10 need to be resolved immediately,” he told reporters.

The revision of the 2001 Oil and Gas Law has been long-awaited by oil and gas players who find the current regulations inadequate and unclear.

The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry has already discussed the many revisions it would like to include in the draft, including the transformation of the Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Special Task Force (SKKMigas) to a specially assigned state-owned enterprise.

However, progress continues to be slow even though the House of Representatives has entered the law into this year’s priority legislation program.

Because of this, the ministry hopes to complete its own draft starting this week instead of waiting on House Commission VII, which oversees energy, in order to expedite the revision progress.

“If it is possible, I will meet with the House next week to speak about this issue,” Luhut said.

The Oil and Gas Law is not the only regulation set to receive a face lift in order to boost investment. The ministry has also vowed to complete its recommendation for the revision of Government Regulation No. 79/2014 on national energy policy, focusing on cost recovery and tax stipulations.

Other projects that have made the list include plans to discuss how to expedite development of the East Natuna block, which has a high concentration of carbon dioxide leading to expensive investment prices.

Furthermore, the ministry has committed to resolving the issues surrounding Pertamina’s pending takeover of the Mahakam gas block in 2018. It will also update new and small refineries, develop a natural gas pipeline from the West Natuna Transportation System to Pemping in the Riau Islands and develop US-based Chevron’s Indonesia Deepwater Development (IDD) in the Rapak Block and Italian-based ENI’s IDD in the Jangkrik field.

Additionally, the ministry plans to establish incentives for companies willing to conduct deep sea exploratory activities, most of which will be conducted in the eastern part of Indonesia.

Boosting such activities is essential as national demand continues to rise annually while the country’s oil reserves continue to decline due to a lack of new discoveries. Due to a lack of new oil reserves, the government has set an exponentially low lifting (ready-to-sell production) target of 780,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) next year, compared to this year’s 820,000 bopd.

Luhut, who also serves as coordinating maritime affairs minister, said he hoped he could wrap up all the items on the priority list before a new minister was installed.

Meanwhile, the ministry’s oil and gas director general, IGN Wiratmaja Puja, said the government was also trying to expedite the development of the Masela block, set to be the country’s largest onshore deepwater project.

“There are several things that we think are urgent, including the Masela project. Previously, we projected it would take around six years to start production, but right now we’re trying to see whether we can do anything to make that process much quicker,” he said.