TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - State-owned gas and oil company Pertamina will not go bankrupt for applying the one-price fuel policy, said Deputy Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM), Arcandra Tahar.

“It is impossible [for Pertamina] to collapse because the program does not burden the corporate more than its capacity,” said Arcandra after monitoring the solar-powered street lighting installation today, February 22, at Andalas University, Padang, West Sumatra.

Arcandra explained the operational cost for Pertamina to apply the policy amounted to Rp800 billion, while the company’s revenue from one of its blocks, such as the Rokan Block, reached Rp40 trillion per year.

The one-price fuel policy, Arcandra said, was the realization of social justice for all Indonesian people. Hence, the government strived to achieve the program and targeted to impose the policy on 170 points across the country so people in Papua, Mentawai, and other outermost regions could purchase fuel at the same price.

Read: Pertamina Lowers Fuel Prices

He added that people living in outermost regions could finally enjoy fuel at the same price since Indonesia’s independence. “So it’s not true that the one-price fuel policy can force Pertamina to go bankrupt, unless those people who believe inaccurate information,” he underlined.

“Long before the one-price fuel policy was applied in Papua, locals must spend Rp100,000 for a liter of fuel, and in Mentawai at some Rp25,000 per liter. With this program, people can buy fuel at Rp6,450 per liter,” Arcandra Tahar concluded.

ANTARA