The only OPEC member from the Southeast Asia, Indonesia, will likely pull out of the group, the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources announced on Wednesday.

Purnomo Yusgiantoro told the mass media in a press conference that aging fields and the declining production forced the country, which has the biggest economy in the region, to increase imports due to the record- high crude oil prices.

According to Yusgiantoro, Indonesia will exit the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries at the end of this year, when its membership will expire, since it no longer made sense to be a part of it with is continuously decreasing production. Also, the withdrawal from OPEC will help the country save about two million euros (3.1 million dollars), which were spent on membership fees each year.

The minister is set to sign a decree on Wednesday in order to exit the organization.

The 235 million people country saw itself forced to import about a third of its oil due to the poor investment in the exploration and extraction, which were caused by corruption and a weak legal system that kept oil companies from investing in the area.

Previously last month, the President himself, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said that the country should at first concentrate on increasing domestic production, after it had dropped to less than 1 million barrels each day, 49 percent less than in 1977, when it was at its peak.

Indonesia has been a member of OPEC since 1962, two years after it had formed, and has been considering the possibility of leaving the body over the past three years.