Indonesia’s oil lifting, or ready-to-sell production, narrowly missed its target last year and fell 6.6% compared to 2020, energy minister Arifin Tasrif said on Wednesday.

The country’s oil lifting came in at 660,000 barrels of oil per day in 2021, Tasrif told a conference, falling just short of an earlier target of 668,000 bpd.

Compared to the year earlier, oil lifting fell from 707,000 bpd in 2020. Indonesia aims ro increase oil lifting to 703,000 bpd this year.

Meanwhile, gas lifting came at 982,000 bpd equivalent, slightly lower than the 983,000 bpd equivalent last year.

Indonesia has set a target for oil production to reach one million bpd by 2030, despite seeing declining output for at least five years.

Oil and gas lifting is expected to improve this year thanks to higher demand and newly discovered oil reserves, Tasrif said.

“We have a roadmap to optimise existing fields, (using) oil and gas recovery with Enhanced Oil Recovery, and massive new exploration,” he said.

Indonesia in November put up for bids eight new oil and gas blocks with a total capacity of at least 500 million barrels of oil and 22 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Tasrif said these new blocks must be supported by a new government policy to attract large investors. He did not say what the policy would be.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Bernadette Christina Munthe; Writing by Fathin Ungku; Editing by Martin Petty and Ed Davies)