Indonesia launched its first new oil and gas auction of the year, starting with five oil and gas exploration blocks offered on Tuesday. The country aims to boost its oil and gas sector touching upon its untapped oil and gas reserves.

“To meet oil and gas demand, Indonesia is currently focusing its efforts on exploring oil and gas basins considering that Indonesia still holds abundant untapped oil and gas reserves,” Energy Minister Arifin Tasrif said at Indonesia Petroleum Association annual conference where the auction was launched.

Out of 128 hydrocarbon basins, 68 remain entirely unexplored, he said.

Among the blocks offered in the auction were the Pesut Mahakam onshore block in East Kalimantan province, estimated to hold 1.1 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas, and the Central Andaman exploration blocks, with estimated resources of 100 million barrels (mmbbls) of oil and 500 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas.

Moreover, the Melati block in Sulawesi, which has both onshore and offshore fields, was also included in the auction. It is estimated to hold 4.7 tcf of gas and 850 mmbbls of oil.

Besides the auction, the government also signed a production sharing contract with Malaysia’s Petronas for the Bobara block off West Papua and an amended contract for the Ketapang block off Java with Petronas and its partners. The total investment commitments for these contracts amount to approximately $97 million.

According to Reuters, the government plans to offer up to ten new blocks in 2024, potentially including gas blocks in the northern Sumatra region.