Strengthening Asset Integrity and Pipeline Safety in Southern Sumatra’s Oil & Gas Industry

Southern Sumatra remains an important area for Indonesia’s oil and gas industry, with a wide range of upstream, midstream, and downstream activities supported by critical production facilities, storage tanks, processing infrastructure, and pipeline networks.

As the industry continues to focus on production efficiency, operational reliability, and energy security, maintaining the integrity of these assets is becoming increasingly important. For oil and gas companies operating across the region, the challenge is no longer simply to inspect assets when problems occur, but to build a more proactive and risk-based approach to asset integrity management.

This was the focus of a two-day technical presentation held as part of the SKK Migas Sumbagsel engagement, featuring Kidung Ajisurya, SEA Industry Sales Director, Bureau Veritas. The sessions explored two critical areas of asset integrity: digital tank inspection and asset integrity management, followed by underground gas pipeline inspection.

Digital Tank Inspection and Asset Integrity

Storage tanks are among the most critical assets within oil and gas facilities. They play an essential role in storing crude oil, refined products, chemicals, and other materials, while their failure can potentially result in production disruption, environmental impact, safety incidents, and significant financial losses.

As many oil and gas facilities operate assets over extended lifecycles, companies are increasingly looking beyond conventional inspection practices. The focus is shifting towards risk-based, data-driven, and digitally enabled asset integrity management.

During the first day, Kidung Ajisurya discussed Digital Tank Inspection and Asset Integrity, highlighting how inspection strategies can support companies in understanding asset condition, identifying potential degradation, and making better maintenance decisions.

Digitalization can help transform inspection data into actionable information by enabling more structured asset records, inspection histories, condition monitoring, and risk prioritization. Rather than treating inspection as an isolated activity, companies can use data to establish a more continuous view of asset health throughout its lifecycle.

This approach is particularly relevant for oil and gas operators managing large portfolios of tanks and processing facilities, where inspection resources need to be prioritized based on asset criticality and risk.

Underground Gas Pipeline Inspection

The second day focused on another critical element of oil and gas infrastructure: underground gas pipelines.

Pipeline systems are essential for transporting oil and gas between production facilities, processing plants, storage locations, and distribution networks. However, underground pipelines present a unique inspection challenge because a significant portion of the asset is not directly visible.

Potential threats can include corrosion, coating deterioration, mechanical damage, ground movement, third-party interference, and other forms of degradation. Without effective inspection and monitoring, these threats can remain undetected until they affect the pipeline's integrity or operational performance.

The presentation explored the importance of establishing an inspection strategy that considers the condition, operating environment, age, criticality, and potential failure mechanisms of underground pipelines.

For operators, the objective is not simply to identify defects. It is to understand the potential consequences of degradation and determine the appropriate inspection, maintenance, and mitigation actions before an issue develops into a major operational or safety event.

Key Trends Shaping Asset Integrity in Southern Sumatra

The discussions are aligned with several broader trends currently shaping the oil and gas industry.

1. From Periodic Inspection to Risk-Based Asset Integrity

Oil and gas companies are increasingly moving from a purely schedule-based inspection model towards risk-based inspection and asset integrity management.

This means inspection priorities are increasingly determined by factors such as asset criticality, probability of failure, consequence of failure, degradation mechanisms, operating conditions, and historical inspection results.

For operators managing extensive infrastructure portfolios, this approach can help focus resources on assets where inspection and intervention can provide the greatest risk reduction.

2. Digitalization of Inspection and Maintenance

Digital technologies are changing how inspection information is collected, managed, and used.

Digital inspection records, centralized asset databases, advanced analytics, remote inspection technologies, and condition monitoring can improve visibility across asset portfolios and support more informed maintenance decisions.

The broader trend is moving towards data-driven asset integrity, where inspection results become part of an integrated decision-making process rather than remaining as standalone technical reports.

3. Greater Focus on Aging Infrastructure

A significant consideration for mature oil and gas producing regions is the management of aging assets.

As infrastructure continues to operate over longer periods, operators need to understand remaining life, degradation rates, and the effectiveness of existing protection and maintenance programs.

This makes techniques such as residual life assessment, corrosion assessment, integrity evaluation, and fitness-for-service approaches increasingly relevant to long-term asset management.

4. Pipeline Integrity and Underground Infrastructure

As pipeline networks become increasingly important to energy transportation, maintaining the integrity of buried infrastructure is a growing priority.

Underground pipelines require a combination of inspection, route monitoring, corrosion management, operational controls, and appropriate assessment techniques. An effective integrity management program should also consider external threats and changes in the surrounding environment.

For operators in Southern Sumatra, this is particularly relevant where pipelines connect geographically dispersed production and processing infrastructure.

Keeping Pace with Indonesia’s Regulatory Requirements

Asset integrity is not only an operational priority; it is also closely connected to regulatory compliance.

In Indonesia, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Regulation (Permen ESDM) No. 32 of 2021 on Technical Inspection and Safety Inspection of Installations and Equipment in Oil and Gas Business Activities provides an important regulatory framework for inspection and safety requirements. The regulation replaced the previous 1997 regulation governing the safety of oil and gas transmission pipelines.

Among other requirements, the regulation requires contractors or business license holders to establish procedures covering normal operations, repair and emergency conditions, monitoring of pipeline routes, prevention of damage, maintenance, periodic inspection during operation, and emergency response.

The regulation also recognizes activities such as technical inspection, risk analysis, reverse engineering, and residual life assessment as part of the broader technical and safety framework for oil and gas installations and equipment.

More recently, Indonesia has continued to update its wider energy-sector regulatory framework. Government Regulation No. 28 of 2025 on Risk-Based Business Licensing provides a broader framework for business licensing, while Permen ESDM No. 7 of 2026 establishes updated business activity standards within the risk-based licensing framework for the energy and mineral resources sector.

These developments reinforce the importance of integrating regulatory requirements into an organization's operational and asset management systems rather than treating compliance as a separate activity.

Building a More Resilient Oil and Gas Asset Strategy

For oil and gas companies in Southern Sumatra, effective asset integrity management requires a combination of technical capability, reliable inspection data, competent personnel, appropriate technology, and a strong safety culture.

The key question is increasingly shifting from:

“Is the asset being inspected?”

to:

“Do we have sufficient information to understand the asset’s condition, risk, and remaining integrity—and are we taking the right action at the right time?”

Digital inspection and risk-based approaches can help organizations answer this question more effectively.

By combining inspection expertise with asset integrity assessment, data-driven decision-making, and regulatory awareness, oil and gas operators can strengthen the reliability of critical infrastructure while supporting safer and more efficient operations.

Supporting the Future of Oil & Gas Infrastructure

The two-day presentation during the SKK Migas Sumbagsel engagement highlighted an important message for the region's oil and gas industry: asset integrity needs to be managed throughout the asset lifecycle, not only when an inspection deadline approaches.

From storage tanks to underground gas pipelines, proactive inspection and integrity management can help operators identify risks earlier, optimize maintenance priorities, extend asset life where appropriate, and reduce the potential for unplanned downtime.

As Indonesia continues to strengthen energy security while maximizing the value of existing oil and gas infrastructure, a proactive and technology-enabled approach to asset integrity will remain an important part of building safer, more reliable, and more resilient energy infrastructure.

Bureau Veritas supports oil and gas organizations in strengthening asset integrity, inspection, and risk management across the asset lifecycle—helping organizations turn technical insight into safer and more reliable operations.