Hanoi (VNA) – Indonesia is aiming to increase its oil and gas production to one million barrels perday in 2030, according to an official.

The goal isachievable as the country’s oil and gas potential is still very large and has not been fully tapped, said head ofthe Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Special Task Force (SKK Migas) DwiSoetjipto.

Indonesia has128 basins, 54 of which with combined reserves of 3.8 billion barrels of oil have been exploited, whilethe remaining 74 have total reserves estimated up to 7.4 billion barrels, Dwisaid.

However, oneof the challenges in reaching the goal is that oil and gas projects require very large investments while it takes quite a long time for aproject to go from exploration to exploitation, sometimes up to 10 years.

The countryalso needs to provide an attractive investment climate driven through investor-friendly regulations, hecontinued, saying the government should eliminate overlapping regulations at local andcentral levels.

Last year,Moody’s Investor Services estimated that by 2025, Indonesia will need to invest more than 150 billion USD in oil and gas projectsto prevent declines in output, develop infrastructure for gas imports, and boost its oil refining capacity to meet increasing domesticfuel demand.

Moody’s Asst.Vice President Rachel Chua said 80 percent of the funding, or about 120 billionUSD, will be spent onexploration and exploitation while the remainder will be for processing,trading and distribution.

Indonesia'soil and gas production reached a record 1.6 million barrels per day in the mid-1990s.

However, whenreforms began in the 2000s, oil production declined due to poor governmentmanagement coupled with reduced oil investment.

This year, thecountry aims to produce 784,520 barrels per day, a slight increase from 778,330barrels per day in 2018./.