Towards Achieving Indonesia's Oil Production Target of 1 MMBOPD by 2030: An Outlook from IATMI Norway

Indonesia has become a net-oil importer since 2004 as the growing internal demand exceeds Indonesia's oil production. As many fields go into mature phase and combined with other challenges, the national oil production in the last decade has been decreasing from 945 MBOPD to 745 MBOPD with a decline rate of 3-5% per year. Thus, the contribution of the oil and gas sector to the state revenues has also shown a downward trend from 21% in 2010 to only 9.2% in 2019. However, oil production is still strategically important for the national economy. It is important for economic value creation, power generation, transportation, and industries as most of the archipelago's infrastructures are still based on fossil energy. If no effort is made to increase production, the country will be fully dependent on crude oil imports, which poses a threat to national energy security. It is therefore in the nation's great interest to enhance oil production, minimizing the deficit gap between export and import. Several key strategies may be considered to achieve this ambitious target. These strategies can be categorized into the following: 1) People and high performing organization; 2) Exploration, as critical factor for future production; 3) Improved oil recovery (including enhanced oil recovery) technologies, to grow production from the maturing fields; 4) Fast track and simplified project to develop small field discoveries; 5) Strong collaboration between government, industry, academia, and professional associations; and 6)Cost conscious culture. The derivatives of the above-mentioned strategies are among others: standardized resource data management, open source & digitalized geoscience data library, reimbursement system for exploration costs, near field/infrastructure exploration, new play concept, cluster license collaboration, infill wells campaign, multilateral wells, waterflooding, gas injection, stimulation and hydraulic fracturing campaign, well interventions, EOR screening, perfect-well optimization, standardize subsea and/or topside production system, digitalization, and attractive fiscal and regulation that encourages not only the ‘big operator’ to participate in the petroleum sector. The foundation of these strategies should be the legal certainty and effective & proactive bureaucracy. Above all, it is also important to emphasize the common ground of having early HSE involvement as part of the solution. In this paper, the authors would like to contribute in sharing the knowledge, technology and perspectives to all petroleum industry professionals in Indonesia based on the authors exposure in the Norwegian petroleum activities. The paper will also review the strategies, short term and long-term opportunities that may inspire Indonesian petroleum authorities and industry in transforming the ambition into action to achieve the national production target of 1 MMBOPD and 12 BCFD gas by 2030.