JAKARTA (rambuenergy.com) – The natural gas production of PT Badak NGL continued to decline in line with a reduction of gas supply from gas fields in the nearby area in East Kalimantan, a company official said.
President Director of Badak NGL Salis S. Aprilian said in the month of June-July, the company will only operate three trains out of eight existing trains. Currently, the company operates four trains. “If the gas continues to decline, we will stop operating one more train in June-July this year,” he said, as quoted by Kontan.
The output decline was partly due to declining gas supply from Mahakam block as well as a block from Vico Indonesia, which has declined up to 300-350 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD).
Meanwhile, gas supply from East Kalimantan block also reached only 32 MMSCFD. Total gas supply so far this year stood at only 1,500 MMSCFD. Each train has the capacity to produce 400-450 MMSCFD.
The company now expects additional gas supply of 100-150 MMSCFD from Bangka Block.
If the gas production from gas fields in East Kalimantan continued to decline, in 2019, Badak NGL will only operate two train. Therefore, he hopes supply would increase again once Pertamina begins to operate Mahakam Block from 2018.
Given the above circumstances, Badak NGL, a subsidiary of Pertamina, expects production to reach 152 cargoes this year lower than target of 176 cargoes and also lower than last year’s production of 182 cargoes. Until March this year, Badak NGL has sold 30 cargoes. (*)