Gov't Prepares Options to Speed up Refinery Construction  

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The government will issue a presidential decree governing the construction of new refineries. IGN Wiratmadja, director general of oil and gas at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, said the decree will have four options that will help make refinery construction projects more flexible.

"In the next 10 years, Indonesia will need four new refineries, each with a capacity of 300,000 barrels per day." Wiratmadja said as quoted by http://www.migas.esdm.go.id on Tuesday, September 8.

The four options are to have refineries built by the private sector, a government-private cooperation, giving a special assignment to PT Pertamina, or financed by the state budget.

Wirat said the four refineries will require an investment of up to US$12 billion.

Additional refineries are needed to lower the volume of fuel imports. Indonesia currently needs 1.36 million barrels of fuel a day, whilst the national refineries could only produce 719,000 bpd.

The last time Indonesia built a refinery was in the 1970s, when there was a surge of oil price in the global market.

Pertamina currently has eight refineries in Dumai, Pakning River, Plaju,  Balikpapan, Cepu, Balongan and Cilacap. Other refineries available in Indonesia are those belonging to PT TransPacific Petrochemical Indotama and PT Tri Wahana Universal.

ROBBY IRFANY