Merdeka.com – The National Coordinator of Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Indonesia, Maryati Abdullah, conveyed several facts related to Indonesia’s energy sector’s development after the 1998 reform from 84.66 MTOE to 175, 04 MTOE.

“The growth of energy consumption in Indonesia reaches an average of 4 percent per year. This increase is inseparable from Indonesia’s economic growth, also driven by population growth in Indonesia,” she said in a discussion at Bakoel Koffie, Jakarta, Saturday (26/5).

Fossil fuels still dominate Indonesia’s energy mix. Ninety-six percent of Indonesia’s energy mix is ​​still contributed by oil, natural gas, and coal. There has been a decline in oil contribution to the energy mix since 2000. The role of oil has been replaced by coal.

“The contribution of coal in the primary energy mix increases by an average of 1.24 percent per year. The most significant growth was found in 2015, namely up to 5.9 percent, ” she explained.

Another note that the government must pay attention to is that the national oil consumption has experienced a significant upward trend from year to year. On the other hand, the trend of reserves discovery and production has decreased.

“In 2005 to 2015, an average growth rate of national oil consumption was 2 percent per year. Unfortunately, the discovery of reserves and production activities were in a negative growth position, namely 1.5 percent and 26 percent respectively,” she said.

Assuming there are no petroleum reserves discoveries, and the production rate is the same as 2016 production, which is 881,000 barrels per day, then Indonesia’s petroleum reserves are expected to be exhausted in 2026.

She said this was an early warning for the national oil and gas and energy industry to start thinking about and transitioning to other energy sources, which could replace the position of petroleum commodities as a contributor to national energy.

One of the natural resources that can be boosted by optimization is natural gas, which is not used too much. “Indonesia’s natural gas reserves and production have fluctuated in the last 26 years. However, the level of national natural gas consumption is still below the national natural gas production rate. This indicates that natural gas is one of the commodities that can be utilized more optimally as a source of meeting national energy needs in the future,” she said. [azz]