The Indonesian government is serious about improving the investment climate. This is a must considering the discovery of oil and gas reserves in Aceh which are predicted to be the largest in the world. Finding these resources certainly makes investors interested.
This finding became one of the factors that investors turned to looking at Indonesia as an investment destination. This is known from the investors response when the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources conducted a road show.
Executive Director of the Indonesian Petroleum Association (IPA) Marjolin Wajong is optimistic that the Indonesian government is currently serious about improving the investment climate. Especially to attract big oil and gas investors to carry out their activities in the country’s upstream oil and gas sector.
However, he realized that it was not easy to attract these investors to invest in Indonesia. The reason is, globally, many things are happening that make competition in terms of attracting investors more difficult.
“But if Indonesia continues to strive and must be faster and more radical in changing the investment climate, we will see positive results. The findings in several regions today certainly make us more optimistic,” he said, quoted Friday (22/7/2022).
Meanwhile, Secretary General of the Association of Oil and Gas Companies (Aspermigas) Moshe Rizal assessed that the discovery of oil and gas is the initial stage in attracting investors to come back to Indonesia.
Bearing in mind, there is still a long process ahead to validate these findings. So investors will continue to monitor the progress.
“The potential of the field is not only seen from the estimated reserves, there are many things that affect the economy. So that everything will be clearer by carrying out exploration activities. What is clear is that investors will be more interested in more data is available because it will reduce the risk value of the field, ” he said.
Therefore, in addition to the incentives and facilities provided, the government also has homework to re-evaluate the operating costs of activities in the upstream oil and gas sector. For example, the cost of drilling is known to be more expensive than in other countries. “This will directly improve the economy of the field,” he said.
For information, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) said the potential findings in the Andaman II Block became a magnet for big investors to come back to Indonesia. Especially after a few years ago many of them decided to leave.
The Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Arifin Tasrif, emphasized that the world’s oil and gas giant companies that had left will return to Indonesia. One of them is due to the potential discovery of oil and gas resources in the Andaman II Block which is also a driving factor.
According to Arifin, he knew this when his party conducted road shows in various countries. As for the results of the road show, several investors have responded.
So now it depends on the government’s efforts to create an attractive investment climate and the world’s oil and gas investors are willing to come back to invest in the country.
Furthermore, the Director General of Oil and Gas (Dirjen Migas), Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Tutuka Ariadji said that the Andaman region may be included in the giant discovery area which has the potential to become the world’s largest oil and gas reserves.
Especially if Repsol as the operator of the Andaman III Block repeats the success made by Premier Oil in Andaman II.
