VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Deputy Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Arcandra Tahar said Indonesia`s proven oil reserves at present are recorded at around 3.3 billion barrels. Based on data collected by ANTARA from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources here on Monday with constant assumption of 800,000 barrels a day Indonesia would no longer be an oil producer in the next 11 to 12 years unless new reserves are discovered.

"Perhaps it may not happen in the next 11 or 12 years as production will keep dropping. Next year it will drop to 700,000 barrels a day and so on," he said.

Technological and new reserve factors are key to sustaining oil production in Indonesia, Arcandra said. He said oil exploitation technology at present is only able to take 40 to 50 percent of reserves. "There has so far been any technology that could do more. If our later generation could find the technology we could produce more than that. With regard to gas, the situation is better as we still have reserves for up to the next 25 to 50 years," he said.

Arcandra said the proven oil reserves in Indonesia were not abundant. Compared to the world`s proven reserves they make up only 0.2 percent while Indonesia`s Reserve Replacement Ration is also considered still low, he added.

"We are still able to achieve 50 percent reserve replacement ration. That is about how much we can take from reserves we have found. We take twice more than we discover while RRR in our neighboring countries have been above 100 percent," he said.