Indonesia is ready to provide additional liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Japan to meet the expected surge in gas use following the shutdown of the country's several nuclear power plants, the Jakarta Post quoted an official as saying on Tuesday.

Spokesman of Indonesia's Executive Agency for Upstream Oil and Gas Business Activities (BPMIGAS) Gde Pradnyana said on Monday that Japan might turn to Indonesia to meet the surge in the country's gas needs to generate electricity to compensate for the decline in the power supply from nuclear reactors.

He said that 20 cargoes of LNG from the Bontang Plant in East Kalimantan province were still available for sale.

At present, Japan is one of the main buyers of LNG produced at the Bontang Plant.

"Japan lost around 25 percent of its power supply following the disaster. As the crude oil price is more expensive now, it will buy more gas to generate electricity," he said, adding that the recovery of the nuclear plant was predicted to take a long time.

Pradnyana said that so far shipments of LNG to Japan had not been interrupted following the devastation.

Tokyo Electric Power Corp. and other Japanese utilities may increase outputs of gas, oil and coal-fired power plants to replace production from the 11 nuclear reactors closed last week following the 8.9-magnitude earthquake that hit on Friday.

About 30 percent of Japan's power supply comes from 54 nuclear reactors.