Pertamina Prepares to Upgrade Four Oil Rigs
9 December 2014 12:14 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta -Ahmad Bambang, Director of Marketing and Retail for state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina, said that the company has agreed to sign an agreement to upgrade four oil refineries involving four foreign oil companies. The agreement will be signed on December 10, 2014. "This agreement aims at restoring our old oil rigs, which are more than 30 years old," said Bambang on Monday, December 7, 2014.
Pertamina will team up with Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia), JX Nippon Oil and Energy Corporation (Japan), Sinopec Limited (China) and PTT Global Company Limited (Thailand). The four oil rigs that will be upgraded are the ones located in Cilacap, Plaju, Balikpapan and Balongan.
The upgrade needs to be carried out to increase the rig's performance in producing higher octane fuels. Bambang said that Pertamina’s rigs currently can only produce light crude oil, with a final product of 70 to 80 octane fuels. "Our rigs can accommodate expensive oils but [only capable of producing] cheap oils," he said.
As a result, Pertamina is forced to import 92 octane fuels.
KHAIRUL ANAM
