JAKARTA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Indonesian government has worked out a plan to reactivate idle wells across the country to decrease oil shipment from overseas, amid high price volatility, a minister said on Sunday.
Indonesian Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia said that Indonesia has 16,990 idle wells. Among them, 4,495 have hydrocarbon potential, 4,993 do not have hydrocarbon potential, and the rest are being studied.
With technological intervention, Bahlil said that post-sale production from idle wells could increase the country's oil production to over 1.5 million barrels per day.
The minister noted that Indonesia's oil lifting reached 1.5 million barrels per day in 1997.
According to him, the government has to allocate 500 trillion rupiahs (about 31.33 billion U.S. dollars) annually for oil imports. ■
