Indonesia’s offshore oil and gas: decommissioning uncertainty and the legal struggle

Hydrocarbon extraction is generally associated with various environmental obligations, especially during the construction of oil platforms, pipelines, wells, and other facilities, as well as in the post-production phase. The offshore oil and gas industry creates problems for the environment and shipping safety. The contractor is required to decommission all production facilities that were built prior to the post-mining stage. However, this obligation is not easily met by Indonesia despite various international regulations. From the perspective of national law, decommissioning of oil and gas facilities is only a recent obligation due to weaknesses in the law regulating oil and gas activities involving multinational companies. Therefore, decommissioning has not been implemented to date. The delay in decommissioning contributes to Indonesia's weakness in the protection of the marine environment and shipping security.