Workers' Party regrets Indonesia's decision to reduce its exports of gas to Singapore 'if due to recent unconnected events'
SINGAPORE: In the wake of Indonesia cutting natural gas exports to Singapore starting from Oct 24 (Saturday) to meet domestic electricity needs, Singapore’s largest opposition party, the Workers’ Party, issued a statement, saying it regretted Indonesia’s decision, especially if it’s been due to “recent unconnected events.”
The WP referred to the haze from forest and peat wood fires in Indonesia that has affected Singapore and other countries, which some Indonesian officials have commented on in relation to Singapore.
“These comments have since become conflated in some quarters with allegations of a conspiracy by our sovereign wealth funds to influence the status of Indonesia in financial markets, and importantly, the latest announcement by Indonesia to curtail natural gas exports to Singapore,” the WP wrote, adding that if cutting the gas supply is a retaliatory move, existing commercial contracts should be honoured even as the city-state moves to diversify its gas sources.
The statement also included a history of WP MPs raising the issue in Parliament. In 2022, Aljunied MP Gerald Giam asked about unexpected disruptions to Indonesian piped-gas supplies and Sengkang MP Louis Chua raised questions about Singapore's gas contracts with Indonesia and when they expire.
Indonesia had already said in 2020 that it planned to halt its supply of gas to Singapore by 2023. However, in 2022, Jakarta announced it would extend Singapore’s contract to 2028, albeit at lower volumes.
Indonesia is currently the source for as much as a quarter of Singapore's total natural gas supply and, in 2025, delivered 3.22 million tonnes to the city-state, according to reporting from The Straits Times. By the end of 2028, Singapore’s contracts with Indonesia for natural gas imports are set to expire.
Nevertheless, Singaporeans were assured by the government that the supply of electricity will not be affected.
The WP wrote that it “agrees that the sanctity of international commercial contracts, particularly those that cover our key utilities, is an issue of national importance.”
However, the party called recent events a reminder of how important the diversification of energy supply chains is, particularly in light of an increasingly unpredictable global environment, and noted that during last week’s Qatar-Singapore High-Level Joint Committee (HLJC) on the facilitation of stable LNG procurement supply chains.
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“The WP will continue to speak up in Parliament to strengthen our national energy and economic policies, for the benefit of Singapore and all Singaporeans. WP MPs have filed haze-related questions arising for the upcoming parliamentary sitting, and we will follow up with supplementary questions during the session as appropriate,” it added. /TISG