More Is More? The Inquiry of Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Upstream Petroleum Fields of Indonesia

Global dependence on fossil fuels remains high despite the rapid expansion of renewable energy initiatives, and fossil fuels extracted from the earth’s crust are major contributors to greenhouse gasses. Unlike greenhouse gas studies in the downstream area, currently, few studies have investigated greenhouse gas in the upstream field, and there is no published study related to carbon emission influencing factors in Indonesia’s upstream field. A short panel data analysis is used to investigate the influence of oil and gas production and energy usage on greenhouse gas emissions by using data from 25 upstream fields (including offshore and onshore fields) collected from 2015 to 2018. The results show that maintaining a constant energy usage leads to increased oil and gas production and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. This pattern implicitly indicates that improving energy efficiency during oil and gas production is critical for ensuring production stability and further reducing greenhouse gas. This study may contribute significantly toward the industrial decarbonization approach that includes upstream processes to achieve net-zero carbon emissions. We recommend further research to study the carbon mitigation pattern in the upstream petroleum fields.