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Ministry struggles to achieve target of building 1.9 million gas pipelines
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Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan (right), accompanied by Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini (center), listens to an explanation from a technician of state-owned distribution company PT Perusahaan Gas Negara (PGN) after officiating a gas network in Surabaya on Sunday. (Antara/ Didik Suhartono)
T
he Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry has acknowledged that it can only build less than half of its targeted 1.9 million gas pipelines to cover the household gas network until 2019 due to red tape.
The ministry’s secretary-general, Ego Syahrial, said it had only managed to build 350,000 pipelines as of now, while planning for an additional 78,513 this year and 200,000 in 2019.
The ministry’s goal by 2019 is to build 628,513 gas pipelines in total.
Ego said as quoted by kontan.co.id that long and complicated bureaucratic procedures and conflicting interests between institutions on the ground had made the task difficult to execute.
Read also: Pertamina, PGN to connect 78,367 households through city gas network in 2018
Despite the possibility of falling short of the target, Ego said the current pipelines were more than sufficient to fulfill domestic needs as consumers switched from liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to the household gas network because of them.
Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan said LPG consumption stood at 6.5 million tons a year, 4.5 million tons of which were fulfilled through imports. (dpk/gda)
