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Tuesday 9 July 2013

Lacking Infrastructure May Stall Gas Conversion

Lacking Infrastructure May Stall Gas Conversion
The small numbers of gas filling station (SPBG in its Indonesian abbreviation) may obstruct government’s conversion program, from oil fuel to gas fuel. Gas fuel is still relatively inaccessible, especially for the targeted segment of public transportation.
“The distance between one SPBG to another is usually far. Hence, public transportations would lose a lot of time just to fill their tanks,”
said Danny Praditya, Chairman of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Entrepreneur Association, yesterday (3/27) in Jakarta.

According to him, the time consumed would be inefficient, since the public transportation vehicles may need to go outside their assigned route to fill their tanks with gas fuel. Meanwhile, the limited tank capacity would not allow public transportation drivers to only fill-up once a day.
Apart from technical problems, Danny Praditya also pointed out the importance of supporting infrastructure, such as maintenance workshop and technician for gas fueled vehicle. Such shortage would further delay the completion of the conversion program.
Price disparity is also an issue for potential customer. “The pricing may not yet be attractive. Gas fuel is only 10 cents cheaper. But with the technical problems mentioned above, people would still prefer to use oil fuel,” Danny Praditya explained.

Meanwhile, Edy Hermantoro, the Director General of Oil and Gas – Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources claimed to have secured 25 MMSCFD of gas supply, along with the fund to provide 5,000 units of converter kit. Additionally, the Ministry of Industry also provided 10,000 units of converter kit to support the gas conversion program.
The government has set the conversion program from oil fuel to gas fuel to be implemented by this year, as an effort to reduce oil consumption.
“This is a part of the effort to control oil consumption for proper targets. We have one target to be implemented in a massive scale, that is the gas conversion program,” Edy Hermantoro told Majalah TAMBANG, last week in Jakarta.
He further mentioned that 20 additional SPBG has currently under construction in Jakarta area, to proceed with the gas conversion program.

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