TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - State-owned oil and gas company Pertamina marketing director Muchamad Iskandar said that the number of consumers of RON 88 or Premium fuel in the first quarter of 2017 significantly declined compared to 2016.
“In the first quarter of 2016, Premium proportional consumption stood at 83 percent. Meanwhile, in the first quarter of 2017, the consumption dropped to 44.3 percent,” Iskandar said yesterday at Pertamina head office in central Jakarta. He said that consumers have shifted from Premium to special fuel, such as Pertalite and Pertamax.
Iskandar said that Pertamax consumption also grew from 10.1 percent in 2016 to 16.7 percent in the first quarter of this year. Shifting consumer preference from Premium to special fuel is expected to continue. “We hope consumers would pick products with the best quality,” he said.
Nevertheless, fuel product sales in the first quarter of 2017 increased by 5 percent to 15.85 million kiloliters. “The growth trend seemed to be increasing compared to the growth from 2015 to 2017 of 4 percent or in the previous year, namely 2014-2015, which was minus 4 percent,” he said.
Sales of non-fuel products, such as petrochemical and LPG, grew by 6 percent or 3.68 million kiloliters compared to the first quarter of 2016 at 3.46 million kiloliters. Lubricant sales slipped 1 percent in the first quarter of 2017 compared to Q1 of 2016.
CAESAR AKBAR | ALI HIDAYAT