An inventor who returns home

By Johannes Simbolon

Arcandra Tahar has officially taken over from Sudirman Said as new Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources.
Who is he? Thus, people asked upon hearing his name mentioned by President Joko Widodo in the ceremony to announce the Cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday, July 27.
“In the United States, people call me ‘Mr. Tahar’. At home, I was called ‘Ar’. Due to a mistake, friends at the kindergarten called me ‘Candra’. Until now, people generally call me ‘Candra’. The President calls me ‘Mas Candra’,” he said while introducing himself to the media in the press conference on Friday, July 29, 2016.
Few people here knew him until after the President mentioned his name during the announcement of the Cabinet reshuffle. This is because he has spent most of his adult life in the United States. He left Indonesia in 1996, two years after finishing his study on mechanical engineering at the engineering school of the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). He received a scholarship from state owned tin mining company PT Timah Tbk to pursue his study in the US. Destiny however led him to remain in the country and call it home for more than 20 years.
“I lived in the United States for 20 years. This is the 21st year I lived in the country. I went to the US in May 1996 with a purpose of getting a master degree. After obtaining the master degree, however, I wanted to continue to the PhD program. It was a destiny. There is a so-called destiny that we have to believe in,” he said.
Arcandra studied at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, a small town about 1.5-hour drive from Houston. It is the fourth largest university in the US and the largest in Texas. It is consistently ranked among the top 20 public universities in the US; most notably, its engineering school ranks in the top 10 of public schools, according to Wikipedia.
Arcandra got a master degree from the university in 1998 and a PhD degree in ocean engineering in 2001.
“It is a bit difficult to translate it into Indonesia. Why? Because in Indonesia teknik kelautan (ocean engineering) is related to marine biotas, fish. What I studied was very much different. In ocean engineering, we learned how to design a platform in shallow and deep water. It is not related to fish at all,” he explained.
After receiving a PhD degree, Arcandra said he initially planned to extend his stay for a while in the US in order to gain work experience. His encounter with two noted figures in the oil industry, Ed Horton and Lyle D. Finn, changed his mind.
“I happened to meet Ed Horton, who was my teacher. He died last year, aged 87. He is the founder of deep water platform which is widely used around the world. He is the teacher of the teachers as far as ocean platform is concerned. He invented the tension leg platform (TLP) which is now in use in Chevron’s West Seno field in Makassar Strait. He also invented the spar platform which is being used by Petronas in Kikeh field. The platform is used in many parts of the world, including Mexico and North Sea. He also invented several other platforms, including buying tower which is now used in Peru.
“I also had a great teacher, Lyle D. Finn. He is the inventor of compliant tower. Both of them were my teachers at the time I was pursuing my career in industry” he said.
Arcandra followed the footsteps of the two teachers by making invention himself. He was awarded three offshore related patents and the co-author of well recognized and industry standard hydrodynamics program HARP/CHARM3D.
His biography published Linkedln seen prior to his appointment as minister said Arcandra was president at Petroneering in Houston, a technology development and engineering company focused on design and development of more durable, effective, and safe offshore platforms. He has over fourteen years of experience in the field of hydrodynamics and offshore engineering.
He has developed his specialized expertise through his extensive schooling and through practical experience in the industry. He has been working with the inventors of the floating and compliant drilling and production system, Spar, TLP, Compliant Tower, Buoyant Tower and Multi Colum Floater for the last 13 years. The TLP and Spar products alone represent the vast majority of all the combined floating drilling and production systems operational in the world today, the biography further said.
“Due the joy I felt in study, I never thought of going home through 2016,” he said. “Then, in the 21st year of my stay in the US, I met the President. He then needed a partner to discuss oil affairs in Indonesia, including how to make Indonesia independent in energy as soon as possible. The energy independence makes us capable of meeting our energy needs in time of crisis. In order to protect our sovereignty, we need to have enough energy supplies in the years to come. I was interacting with the President, discussing with him. In the end, I end up in my current position,” Arcandra said.
According to reports, Arcandra was the person whom the President talked to while gathering inputs prior to making decision that the Masela LNG plant in Maluku province should be built onshore rather than offshore as proposed by the contractor of the block. The issue caused split in the Cabinet as well as in public as some ministers strongly supported the floating LNG option while the others were for onshore LNG plant.
Technology
In two meetings he thus far had with the local media – first during the installment ceremony as a new minister; secondly, during his press conference – the minister highlighted two things he is going focus on: the importance of technology and energy independence.
He said Indonesian must rely on technology to develop its energy sources, including to exploit the oil resources, in order to gain energy independence. He said there are a still a significant amount of oil reserves in Indonesia which remain deposited underground but are irrecoverable using traditional technology.
“If a field is said to be depleted, that means there are still 50-60 percent of the reserves remaining. The question now is how to exploit the remaining 50-60 percent? Use the technology,” he said.
He said in choosing the technology, several factors must be put into consideration, including the production life of a field.
“If I have a small field that has a remaining production life of five years and use a technology that is usable for 20 years, that means the technology will only be used for five years and be left unused for the remaining 15 years.
“How many fields do we still have that still have 20 years of production life? Not many. (Mostly) five or three years. The question now is how to make a platform that is of use for only five years and place it at a field that has a production life of five years; and a platform that is of use for three years and place it at a field that has a production life of three years,” he said.
He noted that Oil and Gas Law No. 22/2001 needs amendment given the fact that the challenges Indonesia is facing now are different the ones it did at the time the law was made.
“The new oil and gas law must be able to meet the challenge posed by the fact that the era of big oil fields, coupled with comfortable geological condition and available infrastructures has been over. Now is the era of marginal fields, offshore including deep water, tight and shale oil/gas ad EOR. The new era is even worse due to remote locations and lack of infrastructures,” he said.
“The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources should become a pioneer in learning and adopting technology. The US is able to increase its production twice as much within seven years owing to technology, coupled with business process and talented human resources,” he said.
He vowed to transform the industries under the ministry’s supervision. “Transformation in the energy and mineral resources sector is not an option but a must,” he said,
In transforming the industries, he laid out a program which consists of three pillars: First, making business process efficient, transparent and measurable; second, developing competent human resources through knowledge, skills and experience; third, utilizing appropriate and on-target technology so that human resources and business process that are being developed become effective and efficient
Arcandra admitted that as a person who has spent all his working life in oil business, he don’t know yet much about power and mining – two other industries which his office is in charge of aside from oil and gas, but he promised to learn. Competence can be gained through three things: knowledge, skill and experience, he noted.
“There is nobody in the world who is a superman in competence. I will do my best to study the problems faced in either oil and gas or power, minerals and coal and renewables in order to know and find the solutions. This is not a one-man show but a team work. I have a team here who are ready to help me in analyzing and finding the best solutions,” he said.
“The obstacles that arise, including the ones related to (the lack of) synergy with other ministries, will be settled as soon as possible,” he said.

The profile appears at CoalAsia and Petromindo Magazine before President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo officially dismissed Arcandra from his position as energy and mineral resources minister on Monday, August 15 after serving just three weeks in the cabinet. Photo: Sindonews.com