Refinery closure causes few oil ripples<\/p>\n
SINGAPORE (Reuters): The closure of Indonesia's 125,000
\nbarrels-per-day (bpd) Balongan refinery was unlikely to prompt a
\npick up in oil product imports in March, traders said yesterday.<\/p>\n
Indonesia's oil product imports have ground to a halt amid the
\ncountries worst economic crisis in decades.<\/p>\n
But Balongan is mostly geared to exports of oil products, so
\nthe biggest impact could be on Indonesia's dollar earnings, oil
\ntraders said.<\/p>\n
They said state-owned Pertamina had not issued any
\nrequirements to the market for key middle distillate imports to
\ncover the loss of production from Balongan, raising the prospect
\nof continued zero product imports.<\/p>\n
But the closure could ease some extra Indonesian crude onto
\nthe international spot market, traders said.<\/p>\n
A source close to the refinery said on Monday that the complex
\nwas shut down last week for one month because of mechanical
\nproblems.<\/p>\n
The long shut down period reflected the time it would take to
\nget spare parts, the source said.<\/p>\n
The refinery is largely geared to exports with its 83,000 bpd
\ncatalytic cracking unit providing gasoline and naphtha, which
\nwill impact dollar earnings as the country battles against its
\nworst currency crisis in decades.<\/p>\n
Oil traders said that the news had not led Pertamina to look
\nfor any product supplies in the spot market.<\/p>\n
While it would mean more supply of crude into the market,
\ntraders were bullish that trading differentials would not be
\nhurt.<\/p>\n
The shut down was expected to push more heavy crudes into the
\nMarch market, but ample buying interest was likely to support the
\nprice, crude traders said.<\/p>\n
Balongan processes mainly heavy Duri and Minas crudes.<\/p>\n
"There may be extra Duri available, although we haven't seen
\nany barrels yet apart from the allocations," said a trader with a
\nmajor oil company.<\/p>\n
"But the last trades were at high premiums, and I think these
\ncan still hold," he said.<\/p>\n
In recent weeks light crude grades have been falling in price,
\nbut heavier grades have found strong support.<\/p>\n
Traders said they estimated that Indonesia had not made any
\noil product imports in February.<\/p>\n
Pertamina rolled into March term deliveries that were
\nscheduled for February of 135,000 tons of gas oil and kerosene
\nfrom Kuwait.<\/p>\n
But traders had also said that Indonesia was not planning to
\nimport fuel oil in February or March either. It normally imports
\naround 200,000 tons per month.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/refinery-closure-causes-few-oil-ripples-1447893297",
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