Investors beware in Indonesia

Resource nationalism seems to have killed a viable and important gas project in Indonesia

INDONESIA is starting to look distinctly unattractive to foreign energy investors. The country’s president, Joko Widodo, has confirmed that he will veto a proposal from Shell and Inpex to build a floating liquefied natural gas plant at their proposed Masela field development in the Arafura Sea. The decision jeopardises upstream investment in the sprawling archipelago. Heated debate about the Abadi project focused on whether the liquefaction plant should be built offshore as floating LNG or onshore several hundred kilometres away on either Aru or Tanimbar island. But at the end of March, Widodo, commonly known as Jokowi, eventually sided with Coordinating Maritime Minister Rizal Ramli, who ar