VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

VOInews, Jakarta: Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi's visit to Algeria in December 2023 brought an agreement concerning energy cooperation, one of which was the signing of a collaboration between Sonatrach, the Algerian National Oil Company and Pertamina. The Indonesian Ambassador to Algeria, Chalief Akbar Tjandraningrat, in an interview with Voice of Indonesia which was broadcast on Wednesday (27/03/2024) gave an update on the potential and achievements of this collaboration.

Ambassador Chalief Akbar Tjandraningrat said that Algeria has abundant oil and gas reserves that open up opportunities for cooperation.

“Algeria has very high oil reserves, and is probably number 15 in the world, and even higher gas reserves at number 11 in the world. From this aspect alone, we can actually increase Pertamina's investment here, that's why, when signing the MOU, and extending the contract license, it also has the potential for us to take gas, because previously we couldn't take gas, now we can take gas to bring to Indonesia .” Said Ambassador Chalief Akbar Tjandraningrat.

Ambassador Chalief Akbar further explained the division of the oil and gas business into upstream, downstream and mixstream sectors.

"For oil, there is a division of business between upstream, then downstream, and in the middle there is mixstream. If we talk about upstream, it could be Pertamina or we can go in for exploration, both onshore and offshore, and then if we talk about downstream, we can go in or sell and introduce Pertamina products for use in Algeria. " continued Ambassador Chalief Akbar.

Regarding the mixstream sector, Ambassador Chalief Akbar sees big opportunities in this sector. "Mixstream is in the middle of storage, there are storage facilities, there are shipping facilities, so we can play there," explained Ambassador Chalief Akbar.

Chalief Akbar also said that Sonatrach invited Pertamina to invest together in third countries.

"Apart from that, Sonatra also offered Pertamina to work in third countries, for example in this case Libya, they could enter together." Explained Ambassador Chalief Akbar.

Ambassador Chalief Akbar saw Pertamina's opportunity to maximize Algeria's strategic position for penetration of European and American markets through the giant oil and gas companies in Algeria.

“Algeria is now the main supplier, the main player for gas and oil supplies to Europe. Many large European and American oil companies have entered here. For example, Pertamina uses drilling fluid for drilling. "That's their own product and that's one example of how we can sell our products to the giant NOCs in Algeria," concluded Ambassador Chalief Akbar. (Daniel)