JakartaGlobe, by Fitri Wulandari & Neil Chatterjee on 4:49 pm November 27, 2013
Donggi-Senoro LNG is waiting for new natural gas discoveries before considering plans to expand the plant its building on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island.
The company is focused on completing construction of the Donggi-Senoro facility, and any expansion depends on discovery of new gas reserves, President Director Gusrizal said in a Nov. 22 interview.
Indonesia’s fourth liquefied natural gas plant, with a capacity of 2 million metric tons a year, is scheduled to ship its first LNG cargo in 2015.
“We are waiting for the upstream future discovery,” Gusrizal said. “Once upstream finds new discoveries we can think about further expansion, but it will be subject to a feasibility study and viability.”
Gas feed to the plant will begin December 2014 and shipments to buyers will start in the first quarter 2015, Gusrizal said.
It has long-term agreements to sell 1 million tons a year of LNG to Japan’s Chubu Electric Power Co. and 300,000 tons of the fuel to Kyushu Electric Power Co.
It will also provide 700,000 tons a year to Korea Gas Corp. Indonesia is increasing its reliance on natural gas for exports and to meet domestic energy demand as its crude output declines.
The country’s total gas production may peak in 2018 at 10,000 million standard cubic feet a day as new projects including Donggi-Senoro and a third train of Tangguh LNG plant in West Papua begin operation, the energy and mineral resources ministry said Nov. 18.
Donggi-Senoro is the first LNG plant in the country developed separately from the upstream projects intended to feed it. In previous projects such as Bontang in East Kalimantan and Tangguh, the natural gas producers also act as the LNG sellers, Gusrizal said. The company has its own marketing team unrelated the upstream parties who supply the gas, he said.
Upstream Sources It will buy natural gas from assets in the Matindok area owned by Pertamina and from the Senoro Toili block operated by PHE Tomori Sulawesi, Medco E&P Tomori Sulawesi and Tomori E&P, it said in the website. Donggi-Senoro is 59.9 percent owned by Sulawesi LNG Development, Pertamina Hulu Energi holds 29 percent and Medco LNG Indonesia, a unit of PT Medco Energi International, has the remaining 11.1 percent. Sulawesi LNG is a venture 75 percent owned by Mitsubishi and 25 percent by Korea Gas.
Bloomberg