Santos Optimistic About Indonesia CBM Sector

Santos is optimistic and hopeful of moving quickly in the Indonesian coal bed methane sector.

Company’s early move into prospective greenfield acreage fits particularly well with its business model and has added another facet to the Indonesian upstream presence, Martyn Eames, Vice President Asia Pacific, Santos said Tuesday at Asia Oil & Gas Conference held at Kuala Lumpur.

Last year the Australian firm signed a farm-in agreement in two CBM licenses in South Sumatra with Sugico. This year, Santos extended the partnership and added two further licences.

“As we know, existing infrastructure is critical to the rapid development of unconventionals, as is the access to markets of scale. In line with this, the acreage we are exploring is close to the existing South Sumatra to West Java pipeline, which already connects to the under-supplied West Java market, Eames said.

He said that partnership of many global energy firms in with local companies can give Indonesia in some ways a head start with the ability to more rapidly develop an economic upstream CBM program.

“We are confident we have the right enablers in place in Indonesia to see successful CBM projects develop, and to do so rapidly once the resource potential is better understood,” Eames stated.