Purnomo Yusgiantoro

Former Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Minister of Defense

Date of Birth: 16/06/1951
Place of Birth: Semarang

A native of Semarang, Central Java, Purnomo Yusgiantoro, 56, holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from the Bandung Institute of Technology, and master's and doctorate in resource economics from the United States' Colorado School of Mines.

Purnomo was an energy consultant to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank in the early 1990s before joining Indonesia's Energy Ministry in 1993 under Lieutenant General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (now Indonesia's President). He also worked for a year at the Defence Ministry's security think-tank, Lemhanas. In 2000, President Abdurrahman Wahid appointed Purnomo as Energy Minister, and he has kept the post in both Megawati Soekarnoputri and Susilo's cabinets.

The former Energy Minister also headed Indonesia's delegation to the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. In 2004, Purnomo took his turn as OPEC's Secretary General. He is remembered for the shock he delivered when, facing US pressure for OPEC to stave off then-record oil prices of US$40 a barrel by increasing the cartel's production quotas, he declared, 'There is no more supply!' The blunt language startled investors, prompted speculation about OPEC's true production capacity and drove prices even higher.

Purnomo scrambled to upgrade Indonesia's ageing energy infrastructure, which is unable to meet the growing energy demands of the world's fourth most populous country. In February 2008, Pertamina, the state oil company, hired the Iran National Oil Corporation to build a US$2 billion refinery in Banten, to be supplied with Iranian and Libyan crude.

Purnomo took the position of Minister of Defense in October 2009.