Eid Behind the Control Panel: Pertamina Refinery Workers Oversee Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr Task Force 2026

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BALONGAN – For more than three decades of service at the Pertamina refinery, Suhur, a Pertamina Worker Officer at Refinery Unit VI Balongan, has repeatedly spent Eid al-Fitr far from his family. While most of society gathers to celebrate the day of victory, he is instead in the refinery’s control room, monitoring the energy processing operations to ensure they run safely and reliably to meet public needs. “Not joining Eid is no problem. As long as it is to maintain energy continuity so that our presence is beneficial to the Indonesian people,” Suhur stated in the Balongan refinery facility’s control room. For Suhur, the Balongan refinery is more than just a workplace. He began his career journey there in 1993, coinciding with the start of the refinery’s operations. Since then, along with his colleagues, he has helped maintain every stage of the crude oil processing into various fuel products used to power vehicles and support industrial activities in various regions. Suhur is one of thousands of Pertamina Worker Officers who each year participate in the Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr Task Force 2026/1447 H. Through non-stop operational supervision, refinery workers ensure that energy processing continues to run during the Ramadan to Eid al-Fitr period, when public needs tend to increase. Pertamina has been actively running the Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr Task Force since 9 March until 1 April 2026. The formation of this Task Force is a strategic step by Pertamina to ensure the availability and smooth distribution of energy amid rising public needs during Ramadan and high mobility during the Eid exodus and return flows. During the Task Force period, the Pertamina Group will be on standby 24 hours a day to meet the energy needs of the Indonesian people. Vice President Corporate Communication of PT Pertamina (Persero), Muhammad Baron, stated that Pertamina has taken various steps to maintain energy services and supplies. Pertamina also urges the public to use energy wisely and in accordance with their needs, so that together they can maintain energy availability. On this Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr occasion, Pertamina has prepared all energy infrastructure from the upstream sector, fully operating refineries, to the downstream sector that is on standby 24 hours a day. “We project an increase in BBM and LPG consumption, but Pertamina hopes that the public will also join in conserving energy use in a thrifty and need-based manner, in accordance with the government’s appeal,” Baron said in a statement on Wednesday (18/3/2026). As a leading company in the energy transition sector, Pertamina is committed to supporting the Net Zero Emission target of 2060 and continues to promote programmes that directly impact the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). All these efforts align with Pertamina’s transformation oriented towards governance, public service, business sustainability, and the environment, by applying Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) principles across all business lines and operations of Pertamina.