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Balikpapan residents to start subscribing to piped gas in October
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Gearing up -- Workers install gas pipelines at an area in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan. At least 20,000 people from 3,800 families in the city will enjoy piped natural gas starting in October. (JP/N.Adri)
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t least 20,000 people from 3,800 families in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, will enjoy piped natural gas delivered directly to their homes starting in October.
“Currently, the first stage of its distribution network construction activities, which includes the installation of gas pipelines to houses, has been 67 percent completed,” the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry’s oil and gas director general I Gusti Nyoman Wiratmaja said on Saturday.
He said the ministry and the Balikpapan administration had finished the development of a main station for the gas network in Rapak. It would also serve as a natural gas filling station for vehicles.
Wiratmaja confirmed that once the first construction stage is completed, the second stage of gas network development would begin in 2017. Around 4,000 more households would get piped gas facilities, he went on.
“All of them are part of 60,000 households, which will get the piped gas facility, from areas across Indonesia. It’s the initial step of our target to provide piped gas facilities to 1.3 million households by 2019.”
In East Kalimantan, gas networks have also been built in two other cities, namely Bontang and Tarakan, in which together with Balikpapan, they serve as industrial centers located close to natural gas sources.
Dian Hapsari, the Balikpapan office spokesperson for state-owned oil and gas firm Pertamina, said selling gas piped directly to houses might be costly and difficult to carry out in the beginning because it has to build essential infrastructure comprising a main station, pipe networks and gas meters. Also, consumers must be properly educated on the use of piped natural gas. Once the infrastructure is completely installed, however, piped gas will be more efficient and cheaper. (ebf)
