In the midst of increasing demand for energy and volatility in oil and gas prices, every country must make efforts to meet its domestic energy needs, and to increase energy security. This is marked by the start of many projects globally for the development of oil and gas fields, the development of refinery and petrocahemical facilities and the development of renewable energy facilities.

Indonesia is also making efforts to ensure national energy security. Especially in the oil and gas industry, projects both upstream and downstream are being carried out on a massive scale with the aim of meeting national energy needs and reducing dependence on imports. These include giant upstream oil and gas projects such as Abadi and Geng North as well as downstream projects such as the Tuban refinery.

With this massive activity, there is a real challenge: how domestic resources can answer the needs for oil and gas industry activities. In addition, with conditions of increasing activity in the energy industry globally, there is a global struggle for resources which generally leads to increasing costs and increasing the time required for project completion. If we fail to respond to this challenge, it will have an impact on the sustainability of the oil and gas industry and also national energy security.

The main stakeholders in the upstream oil and gas sector must respond to these challenges considering that the existing competition for resources is not only regional, but also global. Synergy and collaboration must be carried out by national oil and gas industry players to be able to formulate strategies to answer this challenge. And, more than that, considering that these activities will start in the near future, the formulation of this strategy must be carried out immediately, time is of the essence and national energy security is at stake.