Jakarta—In an effort to reduce carbon emissions and strengthen environmental commitments, the Indonesian government is targeting the Sunda Asri and Bintuni basins as major centres for carbon emissions storage in East Asia and Australia. Implementing carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) will start between 2026 and 2030.
Director of Upstream Oil and Gas Program Development of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (EMR), Ariana Soemanto, revealed that Indonesia currently has around 15 potential CCS/CCUS projects.
“Two basins that are being encouraged by the Government to become CCS Hubs in the East Asia and Australia regions are the Sunda Asri basin and the Bintuni basin,” Ariana said in an official statement, quoted on Monday, July 8.
Ariana explained that there are two schemes for implementing CCS in Indonesia. The first scheme is based on the Oil and Gas Cooperation Contract, where the CCS activity plan can be proposed by the Cooperation Contractor in POD I, as well as the follow-up or revised POD.
The second scheme is the development of CCS as a separate business through the Injection Target Zone Exploration License and Carbon Storage Operation License. The government has implemented various policies to support the development of CCS/CCUS. One of them is establishing the CCS/CCUS National Center of Excellence in collaboration with research institutions and universities. In addition, the government also strengthens international cooperation in the field of CCS/CCUS and prepares relevant regulations and derivative policies.
“Currently, Ministerial Regulation (Permen) of Energy and Mineral Resources No. 2 of 2023 and Presidential Regulation (Perpres) No. 14 of 2024 have been issued as a strong legal basis for the development and implementation of CCS in Indonesia,” said Ariana.
Indonesia is known to have the largest sedimentary basin in Southeast Asia, with potential carbon storage resources in 20 basins with a capacity of 573 Giga tons of Saline Aquifer and 4.8 Giga tons of depleted oil and gas reservoirs. This potential is spread across Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua, making Indonesia a prime candidate for CCS/CCUS project development in Southeast Asia. (Hartatik)
