Religious Community Engagement as a Strategic Communication Approach for Building Public Trust and Managing Risk in Indonesia's Oil and Gas Sector

Abstract

This case study examines how religious community engagement, specifically partnerships with pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) affiliated with Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), can function as strategic communication infrastructure for building public trust in Indonesia’s oil and gas sector. We focus on Pertamina EP Jatibarang Field in West Java, where upstream operations interact with communities whose livelihoods depend on land and water systems. The research addresses a gap between formal corporate transparency mechanisms, such as PPID information services, and the need for social translation at the subnational field level. We conduct a single-case analysis using multiple lenses: corporate governance frameworks, social-operational geography of the Jatibarang area, religious-demographic landscape, and institutional capacity of pesantren and NU networks. Our findings demonstrate that Pertamina EP’s existing corporate architecture already treats community trust as an operational governance issue rather than a philanthropic one; for example, the company applies social impact assessments and a social license index across fields. Furthermore, demographic data from BPS Indramayu shows that villages in the operational corridor are overwhelmingly Muslimmajority, with over 126,747 Muslims in districts such as Karangampel and Kedokanbunder. In addition, official data from Satu Data Kemenag records 13,005 pesantren in West Java, with 726 in Cirebon, 260 in Majalengka and 184 in Kabupaten Indramayu. This dense institutional network is already articulating environmental stewardship through initiatives like the “Piagam Kempek” and the “Satu Santri Satu Pohon” movement under KMA No. 442/2025. The study concludes that pesantren-NU engagement should be treated as strategic communication infrastructure for social license, particularly for risks that are socially interpreted before they are technically understood, such as land-use concerns and perceived opacity. The novelty lies in bridging corporate risk communication doctrine with locally embedded religious institutions, offering a defensible model that extends existing governance logic rather than inventing a new one. This research is significant because it provides an original contribution to understanding how faith-based partnerships can operationalize social license in Indonesia’s upstream oil and gas sector.