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ndonesia is lacking proper technologies and is unwilling to take a risk to develop its own marginal fields, such as those in the Natuna Islands, Riau Islands, says Energy and Mineral Resources Deputy Minister Arcandra Tahar.

A marginal field is a field that may not produce enough net income to make it worth developing at a given time. A field can be seen as marginal due to various conditions, including a drop in global oil prices, a lack of proper technologies to produce in such areas, a remote location or a lack of research.

“The question is whether the Natuna Islands is marginal or not? It could be. How come? Because we have yet to find the right technologies to develop it,” Arcandra said Tuesday.

The Natuna Islands, particularly its East Natuna block, has total proven reserves of at least 46 trillion cubic feet (tcf), making it the largest gas reserve in Asia. It is estimated to be able to produce approximately 7,000 to 15,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd).

Unfortunately, the gas field has a high CO2 level of around 71 percent, necessitating advanced technology and huge investment to develop the block. It is estimated that the block needs between US$20 billion and $40 billion in investment.

However, Arcandra said that it did not mean it was impossible to develop Natuna Islands in the near future. He specifically mentioned his own experience in developing a marginal field in Peru back in 2010, completing the research for certain drilling tools with relatively inexpensive prices to develop the field within less than two years.

On the other hand, he also said the same thing might be hard to implement in Indonesia, which has often been reluctant to risk its state budget, especially to order such state-of-the-art equipment.

“Such a marginal field [like the Natuna Islands] needs to be developed properly,” Arcandra said, adding that existing technologies will be very expensive and uneconomical for Indonesia, and especially discouraging with the downward global oil prices trend.

The government has previously expressed an aim to start producing oil from the East Natuna block in the next three years, as it has asked a consortium consisting of state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina, US-based ExxonMobil and Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production (PTT EP) to consider wells to produce oil while they continue their two-year study of gas in the same area.

“We have estimated that oil production can start after three years of development. It is small-scale production but this can be one of our strategies to start expediting development,” the Energy and Minerals Resources Ministry’s director general for oil and gas, IGN Wiratmaja Puja, said in July.