US supermajor Chevron and Indonesia’s state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina are joining forces to explore potential lower-carbon business opportunities in Indonesia.

Subsidiary Chevron New Ventures and Pertamina intend to evaluate novel geothermal technologies; carbon offsets through nature-based solutions; carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS); as well as lower-carbon hydrogen development, production, storage and transport. The collaboration is aimed at serving local and potentially regional customers.

Indonesia, which has the world’s second-largest geothermal installed capacity, has developed the renewable resource since 1974.

Pertamina today has a total installed geothermal capacity of 1.877 gigawatts from 13 geothermal work areas, of which 672 megawatts comes from work areas including Sibayak, Lumut Balai, Ulubelu, Kamojang and Lahendong that are operated independently and 1.205 GW from joint operation contracts.

Diversification plans

The Indonesian national company is also diversifying geothermal development.

An ongoing green hydrogen pilot project, among others, is being developed in the Ulubelu area with a production target of 100 kilograms per day, and a brines-to-power project is under development in the Lahendong area.

Pertamina president director Nicke Widyawati noted the company, along with other players, is also developing carbon capture and storage and CCUS as one of its strategies to reduce carbon emissions at its producing Gundih and Sukowati fields.

Pertamina is also reviewing the commercialisation of the application of CCUS technology in the Sumatra region.

The Indonesian government currently has an energy transition roadmap as part of the Grand National Energy Strategy. In this roadmap, renewable energy is targeted to reach 23% of energy demand by 2025.

“Without a doubt, efforts to boost lower carbon energy projects cannot be done alone. In the future, we hope that world-class oil and gas companies, such as Pertamina and Chevron, can partner to further reduce carbon emissions and advance energy transition as mandated by the government of Indonesia,” said Coordinating Minister for Maritime & Investment Affairs, Luhut Pandjaitan.

Chevron New Energies president Jeff Gustavson said: “The memorandum of understanding [signed this week] demonstrates Chevron and Pertamina’s commitment to continue identifying lower-carbon opportunities through collaboration and partnership between Chevron, national energy companies and governments — all of which have a shared interest in advancing national energy transition.”

Read more