Indonesia’s upstream oil and gas sector will be ripe for mergers and acquisitions this year as US firms look to sell overseas assets amid a "greener" domestic strategy, says a top industry official.
cquisitions in the upstream energy sector are expected to skyrocket in 2022, a top commissioner at a state-owned energy company has said.
Arcandra Tahar, president commissioner of Pertamina’s gas subsidiary PT Perusahaan Gas Negara (PGN) and a former energy minister, says he expects many mergers and acquisitions (M&A) this year.
“This is an opportunity in the Southeast Asian region,” he said during the “PGN Energy Economic Outlook 2022” virtual event, which was livestreamed on Wednesday.
Many oil and gas companies in the United States had adopted a strategy to consolidate upstream assets inside the country, Arcandra explained, so many of the companies’ overseas assets would be sold, including those in Indonesia.
The ongoing trend in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) was driven by shareholder pressure on upstream companies to adopt “greener” business models. “Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips saw greater opportunity to do greener business in the US, so they decided to consolidate their assets there,” he said.
“It is getting more and more difficult to do business in fossil fuels,” Arcandra also noted.
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