{"id":65509,"date":"2025-06-09T03:11:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T03:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/energytracker.asia\/?p=65509"},"modified":"2025-06-09T03:11:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T03:11:15","slug":"southeast-asia-oil-and-gas-extraction-to-escalate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/energytracker.asia\/southeast-asia-oil-and-gas-extraction-to-escalate\/","title":{"rendered":"Southeast Asia Oil and Gas Extraction to Escalate, Decarbonisation Goals in Jeopardy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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While a plethora of analysts, consultancies and intergovernmental organisations, including the International Energy Agency (IEA), are warning<\/a> against more natural gas production, much of Southeast Asia is seemingly ignoring their advice. The region is considering the highest number of final investment decisions (FID) for oil and natural gas extraction projects in at least a decade, a new Global Energy Monitor (GEM) report<\/a> found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natural Gas Development Projects in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Myanmar<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

However, just five countries in the region are pushing the gas development envelope even more. Indonesia, the region\u2019s most populous country and its largest economy, has five projects under consideration. Vietnam has four. Malaysia has two. Both Brunei and Myanmar have one project each. All five countries are Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)<\/a> members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pending Upstream Projects<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If approved, the projects would unlock an estimated 20 billion cubic metres per year (bcm per year) of additional natural gas production capacity. That\u2019s an 18% increase over current output. Development of around 20 bcm per year would not only put these five countries\u2019 decarbonisation goals in jeopardy but the entire region’s<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Failing NDC Scores<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Complicating matters further, Indonesia<\/a>, Vietnam,<\/a> Malaysia<\/a>, Brunei<\/a> and Myanmar<\/a> have already been called out for their continued natural gas development and emissions problems. Their respective Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) also receive low scores.<\/a> A country’s NDC outlines how it plans to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per the Paris Agreement to help meet the global goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5\u00b0C and adapt to the impacts of climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Encroaching on Ecologically Sensitive Areas<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Many of these gas exploration and extraction activities are also encroaching on ecologically sensitive regions like the Coral Triangle<\/a> and the Mekong Delta, the GEM report said. The Coral Triangle is an area spanning six countries: Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Coral Triangle is sometimes referred to as the \u201cAmazon of the Seas\u201d due to its incredibly high level of marine diversity. Over 120 million people rely on the resources found there for their livelihoods. This biodiversity hotspot is home to 76% of the world\u2019s coral species and supports the livelihoods of millions of people through fishing, tourism and coastal protection services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ignoring Climate Science<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Though there\u2019s mounting evidence<\/a> proving the environmental dangers of natural gas production and usage, including methane leakage across the entire gas value chain, national governments are not heeding the warnings for several reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, most oil and gas majors are large publicly traded entities with global operations, and significant capital investments<\/a> in exploration, oil and gas extraction and refining, along with oil and gas marketing expertise. They hold immense political and commercial power in developing countries with promises of economic development and job creation. National governments are largely in agreement with their strategies in what they see as using gas as a stopgap method to address short-term energy needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some in the region also see liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a cheap and readily available fuel source for their prospective power generation sectors. However, LNG has a history of extreme price volatility<\/a> due to supply disruptions, geopolitical events and oil price indexation. Overreliance on gas imports has already caused severe financial hardship<\/a> for countries in the region, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

False Narratives<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Even though the oil and gas industry often pushes natural gas as a temporary fuel choice, behind that strategy is a harsh fact. Gas projects usually remain operational for decades.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSince companies and countries are unlikely to abandon gas developments before reserves are fully depleted in order to ensure a complete return on investment, these developments would have a significant lifespan and would lock in gas as a substantial component of the region\u2019s energy mix,” the GEM report added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Promulgating natural gas as a transition fuel on the way to more renewable energy development is simply a false climate change mitigation narrative<\/a>. When used for electricity production, natural gas emits<\/a> at least half of the CO2 as does coal, the world\u2019s dirtiest burning fossil fuel. Moreover, over a 20-year period, methane leakage traps<\/a> around 80 times more heat in the atmosphere as does CO2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dangers of Gas Extraction<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The process of gas extraction also includes fracking fluid recycling<\/a> \u2014 a process of reusing wastewater generated during hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for subsequent operations. Both onshore and offshore gas extraction can use fracking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, fracking wastewater recycling does not<\/a> return water to potability. The high concentrations of dissolved salts, chemicals and formation minerals found in flow-back and produced water make it nearly impossible to re-use, even as so-called \u201cfrack fluid\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gas development also often uses gas extraction substations<\/a>. This is a facility where gas is removed from a well and then processed to eliminate impurities, including water and other condensates before it\u2019s transported by pipeline. These substations, however, often have gas leakage problems, mostly methane, which add to the project\u2019s overall GHG emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project Delays<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s one silver lining in this unwelcome news for the region, however. The GEM report said that \u201cseveral of these high-profile projects have already faced years of delays\u201d. Consequently, as the energy transition gains momentum, the viability of these stalled developments should be reassessed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Rather than pursuing high-risk fossil fuel ventures, Southeast Asian governments have a critical opportunity to redirect investment toward clean, scalable energy systems that support economic resilience and align with global climate commitment,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Southeast Asia region faces a decade of final investment decisions for gas extraction projects, further complicating its decarbonisation goals. The silver lining, however, is that many of these projects have faced years of delay and need to be reassessed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":65583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,347],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-65509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-fossil-fuel"],"acf":{"custom_author_name":"","article_pdf_file":false,"poll_vote":0,"manage_the_date":"global","short_desc":"The Southeast Asia region faces a decade of final investment decisions for gas extraction projects, further complicating its decarbonisation goals. The silver lining, however, is that many of these projects have faced years of delay and need to be reassessed. ","show_in_lastest_from_the_region":"0","order":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/energytracker.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/energytracker.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/energytracker.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energytracker.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energytracker.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65509"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/energytracker.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66013,"href":"https:\/\/energytracker.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65509\/revisions\/66013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energytracker.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/energytracker.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energytracker.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energytracker.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65509"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energytracker.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=65509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}