Indonesia has become a net crude oil importer as domestic demand has surpassed oil production, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Abu Rizal Bakrie stated here Tuesday.

"Yes we were a net crude oil exporter in the past but now we become a net crude oil importer," he told reporters here.

But Bakrie added the status remains debatable because monthly oil exports are sometimes bigger than imports.

According to the Central Statistics Agency, Indonesia's oil and gas export was up by 18.71 percent to 8.82 billion US dollars in the first half of the year when compared with the corresponding period last year.

Over the period, oil and gas import skyrocketed by 56.63 percent to 7.89 billion dollars.

Oil production in Indonesia, member of oil cartel OPEC, now stands at up to 1.06 million barrels per day while domestic demand reaches 1.1 million barrels per day.

The OPEC quota for Indonesia is 1.4 million barrels per day.

The urgent matter for Indonesia is to boost oil production and the government encourages new investments in oil exploration involving various mining firms, said Bakrie.

The minister said he welcomed the recent agreement between state-run oil and gas firm Pertamina and China Petrochemical Corp or Sinopec on a joint oil production in the East Java town of Tuban.

Both companies have agreed to build an oil refinery worth 1.1 billion dollars in Tuban with an estimated output of up to 200,000 barrels per day.

Source: Xinhua