Indonesia’s Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro said, “There [is] a little spare capacity at the Bontang LNG plant that could be called on to make up for the shortfall at Arun but the likely scenario is that cargoes will need to be bought from projects in other countries unless some contractual volumes can be deferred.”

“Based on our calculations, we will need nine LNG cargoes next year, 16 cargoes in 2006 and 29 in 2007,” added Purnomo.

Indonesia had earlier asked long-term customers South Korea and Japan to postpone some of their 2004 LNG cargoes from Arun but neither customer was willing to do so.

Nigeria LNG is expected to bring the Bonny plant’s fourth and fifth trains on stream during the same period when Indonesia might have a need for LNG.