Energy Minister: No Need to Disband Petral

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Sudirman Said, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, said he has no plans to dissolve PT Pertamina Energy Trading Ltd (Petral). According to Sudirman, the state only needs to supervise the Pertamina subsidiary in securing the domestic oil supply.

"There is no need to disband Petral, but control [over it] must side with the state," Sudirman said Saturday, November 1, stressing that the government still needs Petral to supply oil for domestic needs.

Sudirman also denied allegations that Petral is a hotbed of oil mafia. As previously reported, @TrioMacan2000—a twitter account famous for its 'tweets' about legal cases implicating government officials—claimed to have intelligence on the "Petral scandal." The Jakarta police recently arrested a man suspected of running the account for allegedly blackmailing a Telkom official.

Sudirman also said that the government will conduct a thorough supervision, so that the Singapore-based company's performance will be more optimal. "Petral is a strategic industry for Indonesia," he said.

Petral, the minister added, is still fully owned by the government. "One hundred percent owned of its shares are owned by Pertamina. So if Pertamina's management is OK, and if Pertamina's commissioner is OK, Petral would be OK as well," he said.

Like Sudirman, State-owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno also said she has no plan to disband Petral. "There is also no order from the president to dissolve [the company]," Rini said on Wednesday, October 29.

The government transition team previously suggested disbanding Petral. When Dahlan Iskan was still SOE Minister, he also mulled the idea of dissolving the oil importing company, if there are proves that the company is involved with the oil mafia. 

JAYADI SUPRIADIN | FAIZ NASHRILLAH