Indonesia’s lucrative market for Opec

Jakarta wants to clean up its energy sector and hopes big Mideast exporters take up the investment opportunities it creates

Indonesia, a net oil importer, rejoined Opec in December after a seven-year hiatus. News that the group had approved Jakarta’s membership reactivation baffled market watchers: the world’s biggest producers were getting a consumer in their midst. But the country, expected to be the world’s largest gasoline importer by 2018, believes closer ties with Middle Eastern producers will help it secure stable energy supplies and drive the so-called oil mafia, which controls imports into Indonesia, out of business. Jakarta hopes Opec will offer a source of external pressure that will make its industry more transparent and stamp out the shadowy cabal, which has close ties to some of the country’s most p