Indonesia buys 1.6 million barrels of jet fuel

Indonesia buys 1.6 million barrels of jet fuel

SINGAPORE (Reuter): Indonesia's state oil firm Pertamina has bought 1.6 million barrels of jet fuel and 2.2 million barrels of diesel (gas oil) for delivery in November, a company source said.

The increased imports were needed because of the shutdown of the 300,000-barrel-per-day Cilacap refinery in Central Java for three weeks following a storage tanks fire on Oct. 24.

Before the blaze, Pertamina's import allocation was about 800,000 barrels for jet fuel and one million barrels for gas oil, the source said.

Of the 2.2 million barrels of gas oil, he said, 600,000 were from a term deal with Kuwait Petroleum Corp, while the remainder was bought from the spot market by Pertamina's trading affiliates here.

The price was around five cents a barrel above Singapore spot quotes on a free-on-board (fob) basis.

The jet fuel was bought from the spot market at 10-to-20 cents a barrel above Singapore quotes on an fob basis.

The source said the purchases would be sufficient to meet Indonesia's current needs and to cover shortfalls caused by the fire.

But Pertamina might consider buying more products if the Cilacap shutdown exceeded the scheduled three week period.

Traders here have said that Indonesia might take a total of 2.2-to-2.4 million barrels of jet fuel and about 2.4 million barrels of gas oil for November as a result of the Cilacap fire.