JAKARTA. GE Oil & Gas has officially opened its newly expanded Batam island subsea manufacturing facility. Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Susilo Siswoutomo officiated the grand opening of the facility on Tuesday.

The facility features a new high bay workshop that will enable GE to begin manufacturing its first vertical subsea production trees in the Asia-Pacific region and increase local content in Indonesia.

In the future, this facility will have the capability to produce both vertical and horizontal subsea production trees. The expansion has created nearly 30 new jobs at the facility and is expected to add another 50 to 70 new jobs over the next three years.

GE has invested more than US$15 million in Batam since 2011 for plant expansion, technology upgrades and the new high bay workshop. This latest expansion is GE’s largest investment to date at the Batam manufacturing site.

“Increasing our country’s oil and gas production and transportation infrastructure is a top priority for supporting Indonesia’s economic growth,” Susilo said in an official release.

“The expansion of GE’s subsea equipment facility will be a significant contribution to expanding our country’s manufacturing base, creating employment and developing human resources in the oil and gas industry.”

Employees at the new vertical subsea trees workshop are trained in Singapore and Aberdeen, the UK’s center of excellence, and also receive additional training to address localized content requirement for Indonesia.

 “We expanded our Batam subsea manufacturing facility to meet the growing demand for subsea production equipment as our customers look to develop new oil and gas reserves in more challenging locations in the Asia-Pacific region,” Handry Satriago, CEO of GE Indonesia, said.

 “The expansion of our Batam facility underscores GE’s commitment to localizing more of our company’s business capabilities in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia, to support the country’s local economic and energy goals.” (The Jakarta Post)

Editor: Asnil Amri