A plan to import liquefied natural gas (LNG), one of which is from Qatar, in order to fulfill the needs in several floating storage regasification units may be canceled as the gulf country will export its gas to Japan.

Senior Vice President Gas PT Pertamina (Persero) Nanang Untung said Qatar seems less interested in exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Indonesia. The country is more interested to export LNG to Japan which offers attractive package.

“The progress is very slow. They are not interested besides the distance between Qatar and Indonesia. Thus, the country is more interested to sell its LNG to Japan with a good price,” he told Bisnis yesterday.

In attempt to provide gas for industrial needs, the government of Indonesia has encouraged a procurement of floating storage regastification unit (FSRU) terminals.

The terminals are FSRU Belawan, Teluk Jakarta and East Java with a capacity of 3 million tons each per year. The problem is that those terminals face shortage of LNG supply. Of those three terminals, Belawan and Teluk Jakarta are the ones that have already secured LNG supply.

Meanwhile, FSRU East Java still lacks of supply, in fact the terminal has to start its operation in first quarter of 2013.

Nanang said that Japan is hit by nuclear crisis thus LNG is the most strategic commodity in this country. According to him, Japan is aggressive to price LNG at above US$14 per British thermal unit (BTU). Otherwise, Indonesia offers a price of US$11 million per BTU. “We have not yet made a deal with Qatar.”

Source: www.bisnis.com, Dec 15, 2011