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The Indonesian Oil and Gas Community introduced palm-based surfactant to increase the production of Enhance Oil Recovery (EOR) at a meeting with stakeholders on Dec 11, 2018.
Community chairman Herry Putranto said the use of palm-based surfactant which is the natural resources of Indonesia needs to be continuously socialized.
Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) which sometimes called tertiary recovery is a method to increase total production from old oil and gas wells.
Surfactant is a substance used for EOR in old oil wells to produce oils that are still trapped inside the earth.
"Palm surfactant is a special EOR which produced in Indonesia. Previously EOR from oil should be imported at high cost, but now it can be obtained and produced domestically," Herry said.
EOR using palm surfactants has been tested by Hasan Hambali as Chair of First Golden Energy and has been shown to increase oil production from old wells fourfold.
In addition, the development of this palm surfactant is potential in Indonesia as the country is the largest palm oil producer in the world. This plant cannot be grown in oil producing countries such as the Middle East, Europe and America.
"Besides being environmentally friendly as palm oil surfactant is made from plants, the EOR process is cheaper than that using imported oil surfactants," Herry said.
According to him, the Indonesian Oil and Gas Community needs to introduce as widely as possible the use of palm oil-based surfactant for EOR to stakeholders so that the use of palm surfactants can be optimized, to maximize the oil and gas productions.
During this time the EOR project spends a budget of US$60, while the process using palm surfactant only needs US$16.
Meanwhile, Chairman of First Golden Energy Hasan Hambali added that palm-based surfactant has great potential to be used and developed in Indonesia because the country has the technology.
"With this palm surfactant, Indonesia can increase its revenue from oil production," Hasan said.
Source: Antara News