Indonesia is likely to miss the government’s revised 2013 crude production target of 840,000 bpd, by pumping only 827,000 bpd on average this year, Elan Biantoro, spokesman for upstream regulator SKK Migas, said.

But the country may manage to arrest the rate of decline in output, Biantoro added.

“The average production as of October this year is 827,000 bpd on average. We estimate that the production figure is likely to be same until the end of the year. It is difficult to meet the government’s target,” Biantoro said. He said this was more due to non-technical problems such as a lack of rig availability, land clearing permits and financial woes, as compared with technical problems.

But Biantoro said that Indonesia would likely be able to arrest the problem of declining output seen in the last decade due mainly to ageing fields.

Indonesia produced 827,000 bpd of crude in December 2012 – the same rate SKK Migas now expects the country to produce in December 2013, Biantoro said. SKK Migas has been trying to curb the country’s declining output this year through various programs such as well and facility optimisation.