Indonesia's Natural Gas Reserves Have Been Depleting Since 2017

Natural gas is a fossil fuel abundantly available in Indonesia. However, natural gas reserves have been declining over the past four years.

According to BP data, Indonesia's natural gas reserves amounted to 1.25 trillion cubic meters in 2020. This figure is down 12.4% from the previous year's 1.43 trillion cubic meters.

This amount has also shrunk by more than 50% compared to 2016, when Indonesia had natural gas reserves of 2.91 trillion cubic meters.

This decline is due to Indonesia's failure to discover new natural gas fields, while exploration of existing gas fields continues.

Indonesia's natural gas reserves account for 7.56% of the total in the Asia-Pacific region, which amounts to 16.6 trillion cubic meters. This is also equivalent to 0.7% of the world's total natural gas reserves of 188.1 trillion cubic meters.

Furthermore, Indonesia's natural gas production was recorded at 63.2 billion cubic meters in 2020, down 6.8% compared to the previous year. Domestic gas consumption also fell by 5.7% to 41.5 billion cubic meters last year. This means Indonesia had a natural gas surplus of 21.62 billion cubic meters.