Indonesia scales down investment target in energy, mining sectors

• Apr 20, 2018

The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry has revised its investment target this year by 27 percent to only US$37.2 billion, with the biggest cut of more than 50 percent coming from the electricity sector.

The ministry initially aimed to realize investments worth $50.96 billion this year, of which $24.88 billion was expected to be in the electricity sector, $16.76 billion in the oil and gas sector, $7.31 billion in the mining sector and $2.01 billion in the renewable energy sector.

However, the latest data from the ministry show the targeted investment currently stands at $37.2 billion.

Of the figure, the electricity and mining sectors are projected to get $12.2 billion and $6.2 billion, respectively. Meanwhile, the targets for the oil and gas and renewable energy sectors remain unchanged.

“The target has been corrected from around $50 billion to $37.2 billion. But it’s still higher compared to the realized investment [of $26.7 billion] last year,” Deputy Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Arcandra Tahar said on Thursday.

The target for the electricity sector was slashed following state electricity firm PLN’s decision to scrap the allocation for new power plant projects of 22,300 megawatts and to postpone the commercial operational dates of various other projects in its electricity procurement business plan for the 2018 to 2027 period, which was launched on March 13.

In its previous business plan for the 2017 to 2026 period, the PLN projected that its electricity sales would grow 8.3 percent annually. In fact, the sales figure only climbed by 3.57 percent last year, raising concerns about the possibility of an oversupply. (bbn)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/04/20/indonesia-scales-down-investment-target-in-energy-mining-sectors.html