JAKARTA – Breakthrough ideas are needed to support the production target of one million barrels per day of oil and 12 billion cubic feet per day of gas by 2030. This was revealed by Prof. Asep H Saputra, Chairman of the Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Indonesia (UI).

According to Asep, the challenge of finding existing oil and gas reserves is not easy. On the other hand, Indonesia continues to import around 800 thousand barrels of crude oil per day to meet domestic demand.

“Innovation ideas from students are expected to be able to provide refreshment and out of the box thoughts that can be considered by oil and gas companies,” said Asep in his remarks during the Project Showcase (PSC) in collaboration between the Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Indonesia (UI) and the Indonesian Petroleum Engineers Association (IATMI) and the Commissariat of Saudi Arabia, Saturday (1/5).

This PSC event model was held for the first time in Indonesia, even in the international oil industry, which was held in the form of an idea pitching (exploring ideas). The participants, consisting of students, were given five minutes to convey original ideas in an effort to increase the national oil and gas production target of 1 million bopd of oil and 12 Bscfd of gas. As well as discussing through challenges sessions with national oil and gas experts and Indonesian diaspora oil and gas professionals who live abroad.

The big goal of this PSC event is actually to increase student awareness of issues related to the oil and gas industry, to foster creative ideas. As well as being innovative in the form of practical technology to find solutions in interactive virtual containers with oil and gas professionals, related governments and industry. There are 61 students at the University of Indonesia who succeeded in providing innovation ideas in three concept forms, namely Product Design, Process Design and Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning.

About 15 diaspora oil and gas experts and professionals attended this virtual event. The best innovative ideas from students have a great novelty level and have the opportunity to be patented and applicable so that later they can be useful for the national oil and gas industry.

Hadi Ismoyo and Henricus Herwin, as representatives of the Central IATMI welcomed the initiative of the PSC event. Both of them appreciated the fresh, innovative ideas of the students and felt the big opportunity to be applied in an effort to support the national oil and gas target, especially gas development projects in Natuna and Masela which are still being studied.

The students’ innovative ideas vary widely, ranging from developing materials, chemicals, products as an alternative to Enhance Oil Recovery, application of Artificial Intelligence to predict oil and gas potential, to designing simple technologies to sophisticated technology to streamline oil and gas production. (RA)