Energy Management Needs to be Clarified: Minister

Jakarta, (Antara) - Irregularities in the management of energy should be clarified through scientific calculations, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said remarked here Friday.

"I really hope that the abusive practices of the past in the field of energy can be resolved one by one," Sudirman said, adding that the completion of the deviations should be conducted through a scientific approach.    

Before researchers and other stakeholders, the impact of the consequences of "myopic' thinking so far is now being felt, the energy minister said.

The energy policy in the past many years has been held hostage by three attitudes, namely the "nearsightedness, transactions for short-term interests, and the mix of short-term thinking and the interest of trade, according to him.

There were a lot of bad precedents in the energy sector, from the doubling of oil production as per need, to finally only being able to produce half of the requirement, absence of energy infrastructure such as new refineries, and absence of pipeline infrastructure and new storage, the minister pointed out.

"The infrastructure was not built, the exploration was not executed, there was no ability to process the fuel, and the campaign of new and renewable energy was said to be expensive when we wanted to work on it," he said.

The new and renewable energy was a visionary view that was not discussed nationally, Sudirman noted.

"I have challenged the technicians to discuss what they have done so far. But then the view of scientific technique was defeated by political views," the minister said.(*)