President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Tuesday that Indonesia was considering quitting the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries because it was no longer a net oil exporter, the Associated Press reported. «Our wells are drying, » he said in the nationally televised speech, adding that the country needed to concentrate on increasing domestic production, which has dropped to less than a million barrels a day even as consumption rises. The government opened talks Monday on whether it «should continue to stay with OPEC or withdraw our membership ... until we reach a point where we deserve to rejoin that organization, » Yudhoyono told governors and heads of regencies from all over Indonesia. Raising output could take «one to three years, » Yudhoyono said. Indonesia, which joined OPEC in 1962, would not pull out until next year if the move was approved, because it has already paid dues thru 2008, according to Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro.
