Straits Times 17 Jun 10;
JAKARTA: Indonesia wants to renegotiate the terms of its natural gas supply contract with Singapore because it wants to keep more for the domestic market, Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa said yesterday.
Jakarta has a long-term natural gas supply deal with Singapore.
Mr Hatta said: 'We don't want to break the contract, but what we want is to talk with Singapore... to reduce the gas supply (to keep more) for our domestic need.'
He added that he had asked the Energy Minister to prepare for talks with Singapore. He gave no other details.
Indonesia is the world's third-largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter, after Qatar and Malaysia. It exports more than 670 million cu ft of natural gas daily to Singapore via two pipelines.
The first pipeline opened in 2001 and the second in 2003.
But faced with rising domestic demand for energy and as its reserves of crude oil dwindle, South-east Asia's biggest economy is turning increasingly to non-oil energy sources, such as natural gas.
REUTERS
