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tate-owned gas company PT Perusahaan Gas Negara (PGN) is optimistic about its expansion plans in the Central Java city of Semarang following robust progress in the development of the company’s new gas pipeline network at the Wijaya Kusuma industrial area.

This year, PGN is building a 9-kilometer natural gas pipeline network in Semarang in the hope of expanding its household customer base in the province’s biggest city to 4,000 from the current 150. Recently, it announced the completion of 5.6 km of pipeline, or around 60 percent of the entire project.

PGN Semarang area chief Edy Sukamto said the company expected that the project, upon completion, would quickly attract more households and industry players to the company’s services.

“Currently, we have eight industrial customers and 150 household customers in the city, consuming a total of around 150,000 cubic meters of gas per month,” Edy said Tuesday, adding that at least five more industrial customers had expressed interest in getting their gas from the company.

From January to March this year, PGN built more than 109 km of pipeline in several areas across the country. The completed projects include 15 km of pipeline in Pasuruan, East Java, and 18.3 km of pipeline in Nagoya, Batam Island.

PGN will also soon complete the installation of a 30 km pipeline in Sidoarjo, East Java, to cater for demand from industrial clients there, where a number of animal feed and food and beverage businesses are situated.

“The total length of PGN’s pipelines, to date, is about 7,100 km. That accounts for 76 percent of downstream pipelines in the country. It is also evidence of our commitment to expanding natural gas networks in the archipelago,” PGN director Dilo Seno Widagdo said.

PGN currently distributes natural gas to over 116,000 households and thousands of small and medium enterprises, hotels, hospitals and restaurants. It also supplies gas to around 1,500 large-scale industrial facilities and power plants.

In Semarang, home to 1.7 million people, PGN also runs a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) cluster facility in Tambak Aji area, which channels natural gas to local customers through a 9 km pipeline network.

“The facility is equipped with a pressure-reducing station with a capacity of 1,000 cubic meters per hour,” Edy said.

Data from the company shows that each household customer in Semarang uses about 10 cubic meters of natural gas per month.

PGN sells natural gas for Rp 3,300 (25 US cents) per cubic meter, around 40 percent lower than the cost of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). (vny)