State oil and gas company PT Pertamina (Persero) needs at least 3 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year to meet demand for the natural gas in four terminals starting from 2016.

Gas director Hari Karyuliarto said in Jakarta on Tuesday Pertamina would prioritize domestic natural gas supplies to meet the demand.

“Nevertheless, we will still give an option for natural gas imports,” he said as quoted by Antara news agency.

Hari said such imports had been carried out as imported LNG prices were cheaper than locally supplied gas. It was estimated the volume of imported LNG amounted to 2 million out of a total 3 million tons of gas needs per year.

Hari said Pertamina was lobbying African and US companies for LNG imports.

On Dec. 4, 2013, Pertamina signed a sales purchase agreement with Cheniere Energy Inc. for the importation of 0.8 million tons of LNG per year starting from 2018.

The LNG supply for 20 years is from an LNG refinery owned by Cheniere in Corpus Christi, Texas, the US.

According to Hari, the four LNG terminals comprise three floating storage and regasification units located in Cilacap, Jakarta and Semarang waters and one ground facility, namely the Arun LNG terminal, in Aceh.

Hari said if the four terminals ran well, Pertamina would be ready to build a ground LNG terminal with a capacity of 6 million tons per year.

Even with the current limited infrastructure, he added, domestic gas demand growth had reached 6 percent.

In 2014, the amount of domestic gas consumption reached around 3,000 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) and will increase to 8,000 mmscfd within the next 10 years. (ebf)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/03/18/pertamina-seeks-3-million-tons-lng-2016.html