Crazy Rich Indonesia | Pertamina, Oil, Gas and the LNG Energy Economy begins with a system that most people use every day without seeing the machinery underneath it.
Did you know Indonesia’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources reported that 2025 oil lifting averaged 605.3 thousand barrels per day, reaching the national budget target for the first time in nine years, while gas lifting averaged 951.8 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day? The same 2025 energy report said roughly 69% of domestic natural-gas supply was used inside Indonesia and 31% exported.
That makes Pertamina, Indonesia oil and gas, Indonesia LNG, oil production Indonesia, natural gas Indonesia, Pertamina Hulu Energi, Bontang LNG and Masela gas project powerful search themes. But the richer story is how wells, offshore platforms, pipelines, refineries, LNG plants, tankers, fuel terminals and power stations connect into one of Indonesia’s largest industrial systems.
Crazy Rich Indonesia can begin with molecules underground and finish as electricity, fertiliser, fuel or export cargo.
Did You Know? Oil Production and Oil Lifting Are Not the Same Thing
These terms are often mixed together.
Production refers broadly to oil produced from fields.
Lifting refers to the volume delivered and recorded for sale or allocation under petroleum accounting arrangements.
The numbers can therefore differ.
Precise vocabulary prevents false comparisons.
Indonesia Hit Its 2025 Oil-Lifting Target
ESDM reported average 2025 oil lifting of 605.3 thousand barrels per day, including NGL and condensate, equal to 100.05% of the national budget target.
The ministry described this as the first time in nine years that lifting had risen back to the target level.
That matters because mature oil fields tend to decline unless new wells, enhanced recovery or new discoveries offset depletion.
Maintaining output is an engineering race against geology.
Gas Is Increasingly Important
Indonesia’s 2025 average gas lifting was reported at 951.8 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day.
ESDM also reported about 5,600 BBTUD of gas supply in 2025, with 3,908 BBTUD, or 69%, used domestically and 1,691 BBTUD exported.
Gas serves power generation, industry, fertiliser, LPG and LNG systems.
One molecule can enter several different value chains.
Pertamina Is Not One Business
Pertamina operates through multiple subholdings and subsidiaries across upstream oil and gas, refining, gas infrastructure, shipping, retail fuels, geothermal and other energy businesses.
That makes the group less like one company and more like an energy ecosystem.
The brand at a petrol station is only the visible front edge.
Behind it sits exploration, drilling, storage, shipping and refining.
Pertamina Hulu Energi Is the Upstream Engine
PHE manages much of Pertamina’s upstream oil-and-gas portfolio.
In 2025 materials, PHE described itself as contributing a very large share of national oil and gas production.
Its job begins before fuel exists as fuel.
Upstream work asks where hydrocarbons are, whether they can be produced safely, and how long the reservoir can sustain useful output.
Exploration Is a Probability Business
Drilling an exploration well is expensive because nobody can see the reservoir directly at full scale before drilling.
Geologists and geophysicists use seismic data, rock samples and regional geology to estimate where hydrocarbons may exist.
The well then tests the model.
Exploration turns uncertainty into evidence.
Development Wells Turn Discovery into Production
Finding oil or gas is only the beginning.
A commercial field needs development wells, gathering systems, processing equipment, pipelines or export infrastructure.
Pertamina Hulu Indonesia reported 146 development wells, 619 workovers and 9,783 well-service activities in 2025.
Production is maintained through repeated intervention.
The field is a living industrial system.
Gas Is Harder to Move Than Oil
Oil is liquid at ordinary conditions and can be shipped relatively easily in tankers.
Natural gas has far lower energy density by volume in gaseous form.
That creates three main transport options: pipelines, compression as CNG for some uses, or cooling into LNG.
Transport technology determines which gas resources become commercially useful.
LNG Makes Gas Portable Across Oceans
Liquefied natural gas is produced by cooling natural gas until it becomes liquid at roughly minus 162 degrees Celsius.
The liquid occupies dramatically less volume than the gas, allowing specialised tankers to move it internationally.
The cold is not a side effect.
It is the transportation technology.
Bontang Is One of Indonesia’s Great LNG Names
Bontang in East Kalimantan has long been associated with major LNG production.
Gas from regional fields is processed and liquefied before shipment to customers or domestic users.
The city’s industrial identity demonstrates how one export plant can create engineering, marine and logistics capability around itself.
A plant becomes a cluster.
Domestic Gas Use Now Takes the Larger Share
ESDM’s 2025 data showed about 69% of gas supply going to domestic uses and 31% to exports.
That allocation reflects a strategic shift toward using more gas for Indonesian power, fertiliser, industry and downstream processing.
Export revenue still matters.
But domestic industrial value can matter more over time if gas enables higher-value production.
Fertiliser Makes Gas into Food
Natural gas is a major feedstock for ammonia and fertiliser production.
That means gas can move indirectly into agriculture and food security.
A molecule extracted offshore may eventually help grow rice or other crops.
Energy systems frequently hide inside non-energy products.
Power Plants Turn Gas into Grid Flexibility
Gas-fired power plants can provide dispatchable electricity and can often change output faster than large coal units.
That can be useful as solar and other variable renewables grow.
Gas therefore occupies an awkward but important position in the transition: lower-carbon than coal when burned efficiently, but still a fossil fuel.
Transition fuels are useful precisely because the final system has not arrived yet.
Mini-LNG Is Extending Gas Beyond Pipelines
In 2026, ESDM inaugurated mini-LNG facilities in East Java designed to liquefy domestic gas for distribution to industrial and power users where pipelines are unavailable or impractical.
This is a logistics innovation.
Instead of moving a pipeline to the customer, the system moves LNG by transport.
Infrastructure can become modular.
The Abadi Masela Project Shows the Next Gas Frontier
In July 2026, the government broke ground on the Abadi LNG project in the Masela Block in the Tanimbar Islands region.
ESDM said at least 60% of future gas output would be allocated domestically, with exports capped at 40%.
The project is still under development, so planned output and timing remain future-facing rather than current production.
The important mechanism is clear: remote gas is being connected to domestic industry and LNG export infrastructure simultaneously.
Why LNG Projects Are Megaprojects
An LNG project can require offshore wells, subsea systems, pipelines, treatment facilities, liquefaction trains, storage tanks, jetties and specialised ships.
Every link has to match the others in capacity and timing.
The economics are unforgiving because capital costs are enormous.
A gas molecule becomes commercially valuable only after a whole chain agrees to exist.
Refineries Are the Middle of the Oil Story
Crude oil is not directly interchangeable with petrol, diesel or jet fuel.
Refineries separate and transform crude into products with defined specifications.
That requires distillation, cracking, treatment and blending.
The refinery turns geology into standardised fuels.
Fuel Distribution Is a Giant Last-Mile Network
After refining or import, fuel still has to reach terminals, depots, airports, ports, industrial users and retail stations across a huge archipelago.
That makes Indonesia’s downstream energy system a logistics problem as much as an oil problem.
A litre of fuel is useful only when it arrives where the machine is.
Energy Security Means More Than Producing Oil
Indonesia can produce oil and gas while still importing refined fuels or crude because domestic demand, refinery configuration and production volumes do not perfectly match.
ESDM’s 2026 oil-and-gas balance still showed substantial import value.
Energy security is therefore about the entire chain: production, refining, transport, storage and demand.
Owning one link is not enough.
Gas Can Be a Bridge into Downstream Industry
Government policy increasingly links gas allocation to domestic industry, fertiliser, power and mineral downstreaming.
That creates a strategic choice between selling molecules overseas and using them to produce higher-value goods at home.
The correct balance depends on price, infrastructure and industrial capability.
Energy policy becomes industrial policy.
The Singapore Connection: LNG Crosses the Same Regional Sea
Singapore relies heavily on natural gas for electricity generation and has built LNG import infrastructure to diversify supply.
Read Crazy Rich Singapore | Electricity Grid, LNG and Regional Power Imports.
Indonesia and Singapore therefore sit on different sides of the same gas economy: producer, processor, shipper, buyer, trader and electricity user.
Regional energy systems cross borders long before the lights come on.
Oil and Gas Connect to Shipping
Tankers, LNG carriers, offshore supply vessels and port terminals are essential to the sector.
Read Crazy Rich Singapore | Port of Singapore, Shipping and Bunkering.
Energy moves through maritime infrastructure because Indonesia’s geography makes sea transport unavoidable.
The ocean is part of the pipeline.
Oil and Gas Also Connect to the Energy Transition
Read Crazy Rich Indonesia | Geothermal Energy, Volcano Power and the Renewable Electricity Economy and Crazy Rich Indonesia | Coal, Power Stations and the Energy Export Economy.
Indonesia is not moving from one energy source to another in a straight line.
It is managing coal, oil, gas, geothermal, hydro, solar and new infrastructure at the same time.
Energy transitions are portfolio transitions.
What Students Can Learn from Oil, Gas and LNG
Physics
Pressure, fluid flow, heat transfer and cryogenic systems become industrial applications.
Chemistry
Hydrocarbons, refining, combustion and gas processing show chemistry at scale.
Geography
Fields, pipelines, ports and islands demonstrate why location shapes energy systems.
Economics
Students can examine depletion, capital intensity, export markets, domestic allocation and infrastructure lock-in.
English
Words such as lifting, reservoir, liquefaction, condensate and feedstock become precise technical vocabulary.
Ten Vocabulary Words for Understanding Oil, Gas and LNG
1. Reservoir
A subsurface rock formation containing oil or gas that can potentially be produced.
2. Lifting
The volume of oil or gas delivered and recorded for sale or allocation under petroleum arrangements.
3. Condensate
A light hydrocarbon liquid that can condense from natural gas under changing pressure and temperature.
4. LNG
Liquefied natural gas, produced by cooling natural gas into a liquid for transport or storage.
5. Liquefaction
The process of cooling natural gas until it becomes liquid.
6. Feedstock
A raw material used as an input for an industrial process.
7. Refinery
An industrial facility that converts crude oil into usable fuels and other products.
8. Upstream
Oil-and-gas activities related to exploration and production.
9. Downstream
Activities such as refining, distribution and retail of petroleum products.
10. Workover
A major maintenance or intervention operation performed on an existing well to restore or improve production.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much oil did Indonesia lift in 2025?
ESDM reported average oil lifting of 605.3 thousand barrels per day, including NGL and condensate, reaching 100.05% of the national budget target.
How much gas did Indonesia lift in 2025?
ESDM reported average gas lifting of 951.8 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day.
How was Indonesia’s gas used in 2025?
ESDM reported roughly 69% of total gas supply was used domestically and 31% exported.
What is Pertamina Hulu Energi?
PHE is Pertamina’s upstream oil-and-gas subholding, responsible for exploration and production portfolios.
What is LNG?
Liquefied natural gas is natural gas cooled to about minus 162 degrees Celsius so its volume shrinks dramatically for transport and storage.
What is the Abadi Masela project?
It is a major gas and LNG development in eastern Indonesia. In July 2026, the government said at least 60% of future gas production would be directed to domestic use and exports capped at 40%.
Helpful Reading Across the Singapore Graph
- Crazy Rich Singapore | Electricity Grid, LNG and Regional Power Imports
- Crazy Rich Singapore | Port of Singapore, Shipping and Bunkering
- Crazy Rich Indonesia | Geothermal Energy, Volcano Power and the Renewable Electricity Economy
- Crazy Rich Indonesia | Coal, Power Stations and the Energy Export Economy
References and Current Sources
- Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Indonesia’s 2025 energy-sector performance, released January 2026.
- Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, 2025 oil lifting reaches the national budget target, 8 January 2026.
- Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Abadi Masela domestic-gas allocation, 17 July 2026.
- Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Mini-LNG plant in East Java, 25 June 2026.
- Pertamina Hulu Indonesia, 2025 upstream production performance, 4 June 2026.
- PT Pertamina Hulu Energi, Annual Report 2025.
Crazy Rich Indonesia Moves Molecules Through a Nation
The well is geology.
The LNG plant is thermodynamics.
The tanker is logistics.
The refinery is chemistry.
Did you know? Energy wealth becomes civilisation capability only when every step between the reservoir and the user can operate reliably enough that most people never have to think about it.