Figure 1. Online Interactive Discussion by Ecadin and PYC.
The Purnomo Yusgiantoro Center’s Chairperson, Mrs. Filda Yusgiantoro, moderated the Energy Academy Indonesia (Ecadin) and the Purnomo Yusgiantoro Center’s (PYC) webinar on May 18th, 2020. The theme of this online discussion was “Is It Interesting to Build Gas Infrastructure when Commodity Prices Are Low?”. There were four speakers in this webinar, Mr. Jugi Prajogio (Committee, BPH Migas), Mr. Kardaya Warnika (Lecturer in the Law and Energy Business, Padjadjaran University), Mrs. Soerjaningsih (Director of Oil and Gas Program Development, Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources), and Mr. Susilo Siswoutomo (2013-2014 Deputy Minister, Ministry of energy and Mineral Resources).
Figure 2. Live streaming of the Online Interactive Discussion.
The seminar began with a brief opening speech from Mrs. Filda regarding the current condition and future goals of Indonesia’s natural gas sector. Following the opening speech, Mrs. Soerjaningsih delivered a presentation focused on the current and future natural gas market in Indonesia. She pointed out that future demand will grow, and supply certainty is becoming an important issue. On the other perspective, Mr. Jugi emphasized that the current pandemic has hit the gas market and reduced the demand by around 50%-70%. Therefore, the infrastructure plan is also affected, and there is a need to selectively choose the more feasible plan to develop in the near future.
In line with Mr. Jugi’s presentation, Mr. Susilo stated the importance of project selection so that the plan would get an optimum result and push down the investment cost. On the other hand, the last speaker, Mr. Kardaya, raised his concern regarding future project sustainability, as there are many abandoned gas projects in the past. He also expressed the importance of legal certainty to attract investments in the gas industry. In conclusion, the gas infrastructure development is still vital for improving gas utilization in Indonesia. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the development plan. There is a need to wisely decide which plan to be developed first and to continue the planning formulation for the future gas infrastructure in Indonesia.
