Figure 1. The presentation from Directorate General of Oil and Gas on Indonesia Action Plan “Zero Routine Flaring 2030”.
Purnomo Yusgiantoro Center (PYC) was invited to a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) on Accelerating the Utilization of Flare Gas in Indonesia towards Zero Routine Flaring (ZRF) 2030. The FGD was held on August 23, 2019 at Institute Technology Bandung (ITB), coordinated by Center of Excellence Indonesia. The presentation session was divided into three sections, first was from Directorate General of Oil and Gas, then followed by World Bank and closed by the flare gas producers, including Pertamina Refinery Unit (RU) IV Cilacap, BP Berau Ltd., ExxonMobil Cepu Ltd., Asset – 3 PT Pertamina EP Jatibarang Field, and Joint Operating Body (JOB) Pertamina Medco E&P Tomori Sulawesi.
The first presentation by Directorate General of Oil and Gas emphasized on the existing regulations on flare gas and the current cooperation between Directorate General of Oil and Gas and ITB. The cooperation intended to collect all the flare gas data in Indonesia so that it can be used for economic analysis by Lemigas and World Bank. The second presentation was by World Bank, they presented the plan of Monetizing Associated Gas model (MAG). They also explained about one of their programs, the Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership (GGFR) that aims to increase the use of natural gas associated with oil production.
The last presentation session was given by the oil and gas players. They showed their flaring activities, flare gas utilization, and the challenge to eliminate flaring. The routine flaring of those companies are not significant, but there are other flaring activities such as safety purpose flaring and non-routine flaring. Furthermore, the most common utilization of the flare gas is for own use, either for facilities power generation or reinjection for reservoir pressure maintenance. It is still difficult to find other uses of flare gas beside own use. The commercialization of flare gas is still difficult due to its scattered location all around the field, fluctuating volume, and the possibility of high CO2 content, which make it uneconomical for sales.
