22/04/2026

BIZ & FINANCE WEDNESDAY | APR 22, 2026

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Italy’s Eni announces ‘major’ natural gas find in Indonesia JAKARTA: Italian energy giant Eni has announced a “major” discovery of natural gas off Indonesia’s coast, which the government said would triple the European company’s production in the country by 2028. The Southeast Asian archipelago already produces more gas than it uses, with rising demand for the commodity widely used for cooking, heating and electricity generation. In a statement late Monday, Eni said preliminary estimates indicated the site some 70km off the coast of East Kalimantan province held about 5 trillion cubic feet of gas and 300 million barrels of condensate, a liquid hydrocarbon. The new find, it added, “unlocks significant new volumes for domestic and international markets”. The government said the find could boost Eni’s peak production to 2,000 million standard cubic feet per day by 2028 and to 3,000 MMSCFD two years later. It is between 600 and 700 MMSCFD today. “This is a giant discovery. In addition to gas, by 2028 we will also be producing roughly 90,000 barrels of condensate. And in 2029-2030 that could increase further to 150,000 barrels,” according to Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia. Higher condensate production will likely reduce oil imports, a government statement quoted him as saying. Like many nations, Indonesia has come under pressure from soaring global energy prices since the Middle East war broke out. Last week, President Prabowo Subianto met Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, where Jakarta said he made a deal on oil procurement, the details of which are being finalised. Foreign Ministry spokesman Vahd Nabyl Achmad Mulachela told AFP after the Moscow visit “there is no specific number that we have, but this is going to be long term for energy security”. Prabowo then went on to France for a meeting with President Emmanuel Macron, where the men agreed on cooperation in“energy transition and the development of new and renewable energy”, according to Jakarta. Southeast Asia’s largest economy, where fuel is heavily subsidised, is an oil producer but nevertheless a net importer. Last month, Prabowo’s government announced fuel rationing and mandated civil servants work from home every Friday to conserve energy stocks. It has vowed not to increase the price of fuel this year, even though the subsidy budget was calculated on an oil price of US$70 per barrel. Crude is not sitting at around US$100 owing to the war. Last week, the government increased the price of some non-subsidised fuel and gas. The latest Eni find, Bahlil said on Monday, “proves Indonesia still has significant opportunities to optimise its oil and gas potential as a pillar of national energy security and efforts to achieve energy self-sufficiency”. – AFP

EQT raises US$15.6b for Asian private equity fund o Exercise attracts strong participation from existing investors and 75 new ones, reflects strong interest in region BIODIESEL MANDATE ... A laboratory technician shows a biodiesel 50% concentration during a testing event in Lembang, West Java province, Indonesia, yesterday. Indonesia consumed 3.9 million kilolitres of palm-based biodiesel in the year to date up to April 13 under its biodiesel blending mandate, an energy ministry official said yesterday. Starting from July 1, Indonesia will raise the mandatory palm oil-based biodiesel content from the current 40% to 50%, with the remainder consisting of conventional diesel. – REUTERSPIC

The firm returned a record US$14 billion of capital to investors in 2025, he told Reuters in an interview on Monday. EQT also has the largest co-investment programme for its fund investors in the region, which helped fundraising, Salata said. Global institutional and high-net-worth investors have looked to diversify from the US due to a combination of high valuations, inflation risks and overall geopolitical uncertainty. Asian markets, especially Japan and India, which offer a steady pipeline of buyout and growth opportunities respectively, have been a major focus for global asset managers. “The buyout market in Asia generally has become a lot deeper, a lot more developed,” Salata said, adding Japan was the most active part of the firm’s current deal pipeline. “We are also seeing quite a lot of generational change, corporate carve-outs and divestitures in Korea, (and) in India,” he said. The new fund made its first investment in Japanese lift manufacturer Fujitec, Salata said, taking the company private last year. EQT launched the fundraising for the BPEA Private Equity Fund IX, managed by EQT Private Capital Asia, in 2024. The new fund is more than 40% bigger than EQT’s last Asia focused fund of US$11.2 billion raised in 2022, it said. – Reuters

HONG KONG/BENGALURU: Sweden-based global private equity firm EQT AB said yesterday it had completed fundraising for its new Asia-focused buyout fund after securing capital of US$15.6 billion (RM61.6 billion), making it the region’s largest private equity fund. The fundraising reflects strong investor interest in Asia despite the global volatility fuelled by the Iran crisis. The fund, which will focus on control deals in sectors including technology, healthcare, and services, was oversubscribed with strong participation from existing investors and more than 75 new investors, EQT said. Commitments to the BPEA Private Equity Fund IX were broadly balanced across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, with pension funds and sovereign wealth funds among the largest contributors, EQT said. About US$14.9 billion of the fund will generate fees. “The opportunity in Asia today has shifted from chasing growth to leading profound structural transformation,” said Hari Gopalakrishnan and Nicholas Macksey,

deputy co-heads, Private Capital Asia at EQT. “As the region evolves – redefining global supply chains and scaling digital champions – it has created a more complex investment landscape.” Large-cap global investment firms have attracted the lion’s share of private capital allocations to the Asia region in the last two years. US-based Blackstone Inc is expected to close its third pan-Asia buyout fund at the ceiling limit of US$12.88 billion, said sources familiar with the fundraising. Blackstone declined to comment. The sources could not be named as the information was confidential. Bain Capital has raised about US$10.5 billion in its sixth pan-Asia buyout fund while KKR & Co, which held the previous record in a US$15 billion pan-Asia fund raised in 2021, is in market to raise US$15 billion for its next such vehicle, Reuters has reported. Capital distribution to investors, industry consolidation and diversification contributed to EQT’s fundraising, said Jean Salata, the firm’s Asia chair and regional head of private equity.

India fertiliser output drops a quarter on Mideast war NEW DELHI: India’s fertiliser production plunged nearly a quarter in March, official data showed, after natural gas imports used in its manufacture were hit by the Middle East conflict. the Strait of Hormuz, through which key energy supplies and fertiliser-linked inputs pass, after the United States and Israel launched their war on the country on Feb 28.

India’s Ministry of Petroleum has insisted there are “adequate stocks of fertilisers available”, and that the “sourcing of fertilisers being diversified across multiple countries”. India’s fertiliser demand peaks during the Kharif sowing season, in June to July, ahead of the monsoon rains, and then again for the Rabi season, from October to November, for sowing of winter crops. – AFP

unproductive, but agriculture employs more than 45% of people in India, the world’s most populous nation. “Fertiliser production declined by 24.6% in March 2026, over March 2025,” the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement late Monday. The drop came after output had risen 3.4% in February, 3.7% in January and 4.1%in December 2025.

A third of the world’s fertilisers normally transit the waterway, and the disruption has prompted multiple warnings about the impact on food production Individual farms are small and often

Natural gas is used to power the production of urea, a key part of the lifeline fertilisers used by India’s vast agriculture sector, making it deeply sensitive to global energy price swings. The slump comes after Iran effectively closed