It has been five years since Block B in North Aceh changed hands from Pertamina Hulu Energi to PT Pema Global Energi (PGE), a joint venture between PT Pema and Thailand-based PTT Exploration and Production. The block, which has been in production since 1977, is not just a gas field. It is a symbol of the Acehnese people’s long struggle for their natural resources — and a test of whether that wealth truly brings prosperity to the people, or only enriches a select few.
After half a decade of new management, there is some good news worth acknowledging: the poverty rate in North Aceh has decreased during this transition period. However, the question remains — does this decline truly correlate with oil and gas management, or is it merely a statistical coincidence? Without open data, we will never know. And therein lies the biggest problem with Block B’s governance today: the public is asked to trust figures they can never verify.
The Public Only Sees Aggregate Figures
To this day, the people of Aceh can only see aggregate dividend revenue information from PT PGE/Pema as reported in the media. Aceh Province reportedly received dividends of Rp21.65 billion (2021 fiscal year), Rp24.3 billion (2022), and Rp26.7 billion (2024). The North Aceh Regency Government, through a 10 percent Participating Interest held by PT Pase Energi NSB, obtained approximately Rp33 billion in 2023. These numbers look substantial. But without a clear basis, they remain aggregate figures.
The problem is that North Aceh’s oil and gas Revenue Sharing Fund (DBH) receipts — which have stagnated at around Rp9 billion per year, except for a spike to Rp14.04 billion in 2023 — have never been based on mutually agreed-upon lifting data. The regional government practically has no comparative figures when sitting at the DBH reconciliation table with the Aceh Oil and Gas Management Agency (BPMA). How is it possible to negotiate without knowing exactly how much is extracted from the bowels of the earth?
This is why Aceh must stop accepting aggregate numbers and start demanding project-level reporting — detailed reporting of revenues and cost recovery for each project or well. This is not a fabricated request; it is a global standard adopted by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). With project-level details, the regional government has exact figures, not just whispers, when negotiating its rights.
Open Contracting and Who is Behind the Sub-Contractors
GeRAK has long urged BPMA to have the courage to implement open contracting. We emphasize that contract transparency is not only about public trust at the local level but also Indonesia’s bargaining chip in global geopolitics, in line with the country’s commitment to the Beneficial Ownership agenda.
And it is precisely beneficial ownership — transparency of the ultimate beneficial owners — that needs to be reinforced. The public has the right to know who the actual beneficiaries are from the chain of subcontractors operating in Block B under PT PGE. Without this clarity, the door to conflicts of interest and cost-recovery leakages is wide open — exactly like the bitter experience of Aceh’s oil and gas management in the past, when opaque cost recovery fostered corruption and ultimately morphed into a resource curse.
Endowment Fund: A Cushion for the Day the Gas Runs Out
GeRAK recommends establishing a Regional Endowment Fund (Dana Abadi Daerah/DAD) funded by Participating Interest revenues and allocated to education, health, and the economy. We want to add one important framing: the DAD is an absolute cushion for a just energy transition.
Oil and gas will run out. That is a certainty, not a possibility. Therefore, the endowment fund must not finance daily operations alone. It must be invested in post-mining economic diversification and the reskilling of the local workforce, so that North Aceh does not experience an economic collapse when Block B inevitably ceases operations. The lessons from the end of the ExxonMobil and PT Arun era should be enough to teach us the steep price of being unprepared.
Environment, Emissions, and Protected Citizens’ Voices
The management transition also demands ecological transparency. It is time for PT PGE to start making its Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions data public and calculating its socio-ecological impact. This is not mere idealism; the latest 2023 EITI Standard now mandates emissions reporting and environmental protection as part of extractive governance.
Finally, citizen participation must be meaningful, not just a rubber stamp. The multi-stakeholder forum and grievance mechanisms recommended by GeRAK will only matter if there is a guarantee of safety for the community and whistleblowers reporting governance issues or pollution. Without that protection, the FPIC (Free, Prior and Informed Consent) principle will only become a bureaucratic ritual.
Ending the Curse, Opening Up Justice
The question posed by GeRAK deserves to be our guiding principle: how can we ensure that the management of natural resources in Block B is fair and sustainable, so that the resource curse does not repeat itself in the land of Pase?
The answer is not complicated, though not easy: open the contracts, detail the figures to the project level, reveal the beneficial owners, endow part of the revenues for the future, and protect the environment and the citizens. Five years is enough time to reflect. The next five years should be the time to prove it.
Writer: Fernan, Head Division of Public Policy GeRAK Aceh & Aryanto Nugroho, National Coordinator of Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Indonesia
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