World / Energy — Energy minister Bahlil Lahadalia said Thursday, October 22, that Jakarta will review its energy export deals and could suspend supplies — a day after floating an end to gas export contracts with neighbours, under President Prabowo's "survival mode" directive.
Indonesia could stop exporting energy to countries that "disrespect" it, senior minister Bahlil Lahadalia warned on Thursday, October 22. Speaking in Jakarta at a ceremony commissioning gas production facilities, Bahlil said Indonesia would examine its energy export agreements and could suspend supplies to nations it regarded as disrespectful, while calling for international disagreements to be addressed through respectful dialogue. He named no country and no specific dispute. A day earlier, after a cabinet meeting on October 21, he had told reporters he was considering letting gas export contracts with neighbouring countries lapse, citing Indonesia's domestic requirements — and described Indonesia as being in "survival mode."
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The directive behind the warning
The comments follow a direct order from President Prabowo Subianto at a plenary cabinet meeting on October 21: protect natural resources for Indonesians' benefit, cut state spending, and put national survival first in a world he described as governed by power competition. "Now is a politics based on power. The strong will survive," Prabowo said, pointing to the Middle East. Bahlil said other ministries would adopt similar restrictions. The energy review is not new in kind — on October 7 he announced a review of electricity export arrangements to increase Indonesia's economic benefit and pricing influence, and on October 19 he said pricing differences had blocked agreement on low-carbon electricity supplies to Singapore — but the language escalated this week from commercial negotiation to national respect.
Why this matters: Singapore is listening
The unnamed neighbour with the most at stake is Singapore. Indonesia is a major natural gas supplier to the city-state — Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong told Parliament in September 2025 that existing import contracts run to the end of 2028 — and the two countries are simultaneously negotiating Indonesian low-carbon electricity imports: Singapore's Energy Market Authority has conditionally licensed six Indonesian projects totalling 3 gigawatts, within cross-border plans of at least 3.4 gigawatts by 2035. A threat framed as "disrespect" rather than price is harder for a buyer to negotiate with, because it has no number attached. It also lands in a region already repricing energy security in a week when Brent crude passed $112 on tanker attacks near Hormuz: every exporter reviewing contracts is a reminder that Southeast Asia's gas map, like the Gulf's, is a political document.
Both readings, stated fairly
Jakarta's case is resource nationalism with a domestic logic: Indonesia's own demand is growing, past governments are accused of exporting cheap and importing dear, and a president elected on sovereignty is entitled to review contracts as they expire — nothing has been cancelled, and Bahlil explicitly offered negotiation to countries that treat Indonesia "as an equal." Buyers' case is that contracts expiring in 2028 are being renegotiated in public, with rhetoric that raises the risk premium on every Indonesian supply deal including the electricity projects Jakarta itself wants financed. Both readings agree on one fact: no supply has been cut, and the warning's value to Jakarta is precisely that it does not need to be carried out to change the next negotiation.
What happens next
Watch the Singapore electricity negotiations and any Indonesian statement naming specific contracts as expiry dates approach, plus whether other ministries publish the parallel restrictions Bahlil promised. If the review produces revised prices rather than suspensions, Thursday will read in hindsight as an opening bid — delivered, notably, at a gas facility opening, in front of the industry meant to hear it.
Sources
Straits Times reporting via ASEAN Coverage, "Indonesia warns it could halt energy exports over disrespect," October 22, 2026. Kompas reporting of Bahlil Lahadalia's October 21 Presidential Palace remarks and President Prabowo Subianto's October 21 cabinet directive, via Tribun. Singapore Parliament remarks by Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong, September 2025, on Indonesian gas contracts to end-2028.