Dumai refinery shut down

Dumai refinery shut down

SINGAPORE (Reuter): Indonesia's state-owned oil firm Pertamina's 26,500 barrels per day (bpd) hydrocracking unit at its Dumai refinery will remain shut until Jan. 22, a Pertamina official told Reuters yesterday.

The maintenance shutdown, which started on Dec. 22, is to allow the refinery to change the catalysts in the hydrocracker, he said. The hydrocracker produces middle-distillates.

The Dumai refinery has another hydrocracker with the same capacity which is still running, the official said. The 120,000- bpd refinery is located in central Sumatra.

A possible shortage of crude feedstock to Indonesia's largest refinery in Cilacap was averted with the prompt arrival of a 1.7- million-barrel term cargo of Arabian Light crude due today, the official said.

There were initial fears that the cargo in a very large crude carrier would be delayed and Pertamina might face a shortage of feedstock as its reserve floating storage tank off Teluk Semanka was also facing technical problems last week.

The power supply in the floating storage was disrupted for three days last week but was restored over the weekend, he said.

The official also confirmed an earlier Reuters report that the 300,000-bpd Cilacap refinery is already operating at 90 percent capacity.

The facility was running at 70 percent capacity since resuming operations in November following a fire on Oct. 24 which destroyed seven kerosene and naphtha storage tanks.