Humpuss unfazed by Pertamina moves

JAKARTA (JP): Publicly listed shipping and port company PT Humpuss Intermoda Transportasi, which is controlled by members of former president Soeharto's family, said yesterday it was ready to face any move by state oil and gas firm Pertamina to retender its shipping contracts.

Company finance and marketing director/corporate secretary A. Rahman Pasaman said at a media briefing that Humpuss' efficient and competitive operations would allow the company to retain the contracts if they were retendered.

"But we don't think Pertamina will retender the contracts because our tankers already operate well. Anyway, we are ready to face it to prove our efficiency."

He said his company had not received notification from Pertamina about the possible retender of its shipping contracts.

Rahman also said that if Pertamina decided to retender the contracts, the move would draw protests from Humpuss' partners and creditors.

Humpuss Intermoda is 83.55 percent owned by PT Humpuss, which is controlled by Soeharto's son Sigit Hardjojudanto and Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra. The remaining shares are owned by the public and the company's cooperative.

Minister of Mines and Energy Kuntoro Mangkusubroto recently instructed Pertamina to retender all contracts awarded to Soeharto's family and cronies for the procurement of goods, fuel and materials and the shipping of Pertamina's products.

Kuntoro stressed the retendering did not amount to annulling contracts but was aimed at weeding out companies which charged Pertamina excessively high rates.

Kuntoro said Soeharto's family and cronies would be given the chance to retain existing contracts provided they were willing to reduce their prices to the lowest level offered during the new tender process.

Pertamina charters 15 tankers from the company, including eight tankers for crude oil and fuel delivery, four tankers for methanol delivery and three tankers for liquefied natural gas (LNG) delivery.

All the contracts, except for the LNG delivery, were awarded through bidding.

LNG operation has contributed to most of the company's revenues. The company operates the world's largest LNG tanker, Ekaputra, to transfer LNG from the Badak LNG plant to Taiwan.

Port

Meanwhile, Onky P. Suwarno, president of PT Humpuss Terminal Petikemas, a subsidiary of Humpuss Intermoda, confirmed yesterday that the state port management company PT Pelindo had reviewed the second phase of its container port project in Koja in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta.

Humpuss Terminal is 52 percent owned by Humpuss Intermoda and 48 percent by Pelindo.

Phase I of the project, covering 30 hectares of land, has been in operation since February.

Onky said Humpuss was ready to postpone the development of the second phase of the project because export-import activities had slowed amid the monetary crisis.

"As a matter of fact, the (second phase of the) project was put under review in February, before president Soeharto stepped down."

Onky acknowledged Humpuss obtained the project in 1994 without a competitive bidding process. (jsk)