Wednesday May 17, 2006

Indonesia likely to terminate gas exports

And I was about to get ready to bug out and run. Indonesia supplies much of the natural gas that keeps Singapore, the air-conditioned nation, humming along, you see. Fortunately, they are talking about LPG instead of NG - this time.

peakoil.com -> thejakartapost.com :

In line with the government's plan to optimize gas utilization at home, a minister says he is considering the gradual halting of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) exports. Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro told reporters that the halting of exports would likely be needed to meet a surge in demand at home as the government pressed ahead with its plan to replace the domestic use of kerosene with LPG starting in 2007 in a bid to reduce the cost of the kerosene subsidy. He said that current demand in Jakarta was about 600 million kilograms of LPG per year, of which only 200 million kilograms could be met from domestic sources. "We will make up the difference by halting exports," he said.

The proposal to halt LPG exports has been on the cards since the government recently announced its long-term policy of reducing liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to anticipate a possible oil crisis resulting from growing demand and soaring global oil prices. In March, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said that LNG export contracts expiring in 2009 would not be renewed. "To secure our energy supplies in the future, we need to reallocate energy resources, especially in cases where the contracts have expired, to meet domestic demand," Purnomo said.

Indonesia has about 178 trillion cubic feet of proven and potential gas reserves, equivalent to about 1.4 percent of total world natural gas reserves, according to the Oil and Gas Directorate General. About 55 percent of total production was exported in 2005.

- But this is getting serious. In between soaring demand and looming peak production, the Indonesian government is starting to do what I thought earlier might be the obvious thing to do - that is, to cut down on exports and reserve its fossil fuels for its own domestic use. Will they decide that their own pressing need for fuel outweighs the paper dollars we pay them?

Meanwhile, many oblivious Singaporean residents talk about leaving their air-cons turned on 24/7. Visiting some homes here and there, I notice the trend towards huge, energy-guzzling refrigerators - SUV's in the kitchen, if you will.

I do hope gov.sg has some kind of a Plan B. Otherwise, I will be forced to do, what I think, on a personal level, will be the obvious thing to do. I have stuck around so far. I have even gone voting. But I am watching - and wondering. There may be a trigger event - or there may not be. We'll see.

(2006-05-17 22:34:55 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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