Indonesia pulling out of OPEC because it is no longer a net oil exporter

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Indonesia is pulling out of OPEC, because it is no longer a net oil exporter, the energy minister said Wednesday. Purnomo Yusgiantoro told reporters it did not make sense for Indonesia to be a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries when the nation's domestic reserves were drying up and its consumption increasing. "We are pulling out of OPEC," he said. "I will sign the papers today." The country of 235 million people is Southeast Asia's only member of the cartel, but it has had to import oil in recent years because of decades of declining investment in exploration and extraction. Corruption and a weak legal system have made oil companies wary of doing business here. Meanwhile, Indonesia, which heavily subsidizes oil to protect the poor, last week raised the price of gasoline and other fuel products by nearly 30 percent because surging costs on the global market threatened to blow its budget.