Construction of Balongan refinery to start soon

Construction of Balongan refinery to start soon

A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

State oil and gas company Pertamina signed a contract on
Friday with a consortium consisting of a Japanese and an
Indonesian firm, which will develop a refinery facility that will
produce unleaded gasoline.

The US$153 million refinery facility will be located in
Balongan, West Java.

The contract was signed by Pertamina president Baihaki Hakim,
president of Toyo Engineering Corporation Toshiko Hirose, and
director of PT Rekayasa Engineering Sri Widodo.

The construction of the project will start at the end of
February, and is slated to be completed after 27 months of
construction work.

The construction of the refinery is part of the government's
program to push car owners to use unleaded gasoline so as to
reduce the level of air pollution.

Most automotive vehicles here currently use leaded gasoline,
which is deemed hazardous to health.

The government hopes Indonesia will be lead-fuel free by 2005.

The lead-fuel free program was started by the government in
July 2001 and already has been launched in Jakarta, Cirebon (West
Java), and Bali.

The above consortium won the contract to develop five refinery
facilities after outbidding some 47 competitors. The contract is
called an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC)
contract.

"They were chosen because they had offered the lowest price,"
Baihaki told reporters after the signing of the contract at his
office.