Pertamina CEO Dwi Soetjipto is planning to fly to Iran to discuss cooperation in the oil and gas sector.
"I will sign a [memorandum of understanding] with Iranian national company," Soetjipto said on Wednesday, Shana quoted Indonesian news website Tempo as saying.
According to Soetjipto, Pertamina has been studying possibilities for cooperation with Iran in oil and gas processing for quite some time.
The cooperation will include providing liquid petroleum gas, crude and to expand investments in the oil and gas upstream sector. Soetjipto said the cooperation will open new opportunities for Indonesian companies to be involved in Iran's upstream oil and gas industry.
"The Iranian government welcomed the cooperation plan," he said. Soetjipto added that cooperation is also intended to provide oil and gas supply in Indonesia.
Indonesia's domestic fuel consumption has reached a staggering level of 1.6 million barrels per day.
"Pertamina is only capable of producing 300 barrels per day," he said.
In addition to Iran, Pertamina had also established cooperation with Russia.
"Next, we will develop [cooperation] with Algeria and Iraq."
Pertamina inked an agreement in May to purchase 600,000 tons of liquefied petroleum gas from the National Iranian Oil Company. The company is also seeking projects in Iran's upstream projects. It expects to sign an agreement to evaluate investing in two Iranian oil and gas blocks sometime after the holy month of Ramadan that ended this week.
A deal would be Indonesia's first investment in Iran's upstream oil sector.
