JBIC Helps A Natural Gas Seminar Held in Indonesia

  MEMR's Evita addressing to the audience

A Seminar on natural gas was held by the Indonesian Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR) on December 1, 2010, in Jakarta, Indonesia. Its objective was to introduce Japanese firms' business model and technology constructing a natural gas supply chain in Indonesia. The seminar was proposed during the financing policy dialogue that JBIC and the government of Indonesia are continuing to hold.^*1

The seminar drew a large number of participants, including officials of MEMR, Bappenas, BP MIGAS, an executive agency for upstream oil and gas policy, a state-owned oil company, a state-owned power company using natural gas, local governments and other stakeholders from Indonesia, as well as trading houses, engineering firms and other companies from Japan.

At the opening of the seminar, Director General Evita H. Legowo of Directorate General of Oil & Gas, MEMR, delivered an opening address and pointed out: “This is the first seminar where Indonesian companies engaged in natural gas-related business operations can listen to suggestions directly from foreign firms about specific projects. This is a very unique approach for sharing information, and I believe the seminar could help create good business opportunities for both Japanese and Indonesian firms.”

  JBIC’s Higashi making a presentation

This was followed by a presentation by an MEMR official who gave a brief account of the current domestic natural gas reserves, gas field development and growing gas demand in Indonesia, with a particular emphasis placed on ample room for the development of gas field as well as its significance. Then Nobuyuki Higashi, Head of Asia and Oceania Finance Department, JBIC, delivered a presentation where he made a point that: “It is important to work on problems while keeping the perspective of the overall supply chain, from upstream development to power generation and transmission. In the natural gas area in particular, the development of untapped small and medium-sized gas fields could be promoted by utilizing new transportation technology, plant technology and environment technology of the Japanese firms while examining the appropriate gas tariff system.”

Presentations were made by 8 Japanese firms about specific development areas and gas transportation methods. During the Q&A session, a succession of questions were asked about technological issues such as transportation of compressed natural gas (CNG), as well as specific issues including the construction cost of the LNG plant, reflecting the great deal of attention paid by Indonesian participants.

JBIC will continue to help hold these seminars, in an effort to support Japanese industries for disseminating Japanese environment technology related to resource and infrastructure development, and for addressing global environmental problems.