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ndonesia and Ecuador will hold a new round of oil and gas talks in Jakarta in the coming days in a bid to strengthen the cooperation between the two countries in the energy sector, a minister has said.

Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Jero Wacik said on Friday the Ecuadorian Minister of Non-Renewable Natural Resources Wilson Pástor-Morris would visit Southeast Asia’s largest economy this week to hold the discussions.

“Ecuador has a couple of oil and gas fields and they have offered us the opportunity to invest in the petroleum industry there,” he said in Jakarta.

The Indonesian government, he said, would fully support state-owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina in seeking opportunities in Ecuador’s petroleum sector.

Indonesia, which left the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 2008 after becoming a net oil importer, has been seeking partnerships with oil-rich countries such as Iraq to boost its own dwindling crude oil output.

Ecuador, initially joined OPEC in 1973, left in 1992 and rejoined in 2007 and is currently among the smallest oil producing members of the organization though it has managed to slightly increase production since 2009.

Throughout 2012, Ecuador produced 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil, of which 334,000 bpd were exported, OPEC data shows. The country’s proven oil reserves last year were around 8.24 billion barrels with natural gas reserves of 7 billion cubic meters.