LPG still hard to find, price remains high

LPG still hard to find, price remains high

Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Makassar

As people turn to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to cope with
higer fuel prices, increased demand coupled with a decline in
national production means supply of the gas is becoming a
problem.

In the South Sulawesi town of Makassar, several LPG suppliers
and retailers said their entire stock was snapped up by consumers
in the past few days, while the state oil and gas company PT
Pertamina had limited supplies to replenish them.

"We've been low on supplies for the past three days since the
supplies to the town were drastically cut," Lina, an employee of
a distribution firm, said.

The cut was confirmed by Kaharuddin, a marketing officer at PT
Petrorama Jasa, an LPG supplier in the city. He said his company
had to cut deliveries to retailers since it was getting 70
percent less supply from Pertamina Makassar operations.

"Before the supply was cut, we used to get between 800 and
1,000 tanks a day but since the end of September, we have
received 336 tanks a day and starting Monday, we only got 160
tanks," he said.

Demand for the cooking fuel alternative LPG has risen after
kerosene became more expensive after the Oct. 1 price hikes. The
county's LPG production is also down by around 20 percent because
of technical problems and maintenance shutdowns in the two main
LPG plants in Cilacap and Balikpapan.

The lack of supply from Pertamina, Kaharuddin said, had made
the company cut distribution to their agents by up to 60 percent.
"If the agents want 30 tanks, we can only distribute 15 to ensure
all get a fair share. We have to do this, although we know demand
is on the rise due to the high price of kerosene," he said.

Scarcity has pushed up LPG prices at retailers, with a 12-kg
LPG gas tank selling at up to Rp 70,000 in Makassar while in
remote areas like Selayar it is priced at up to Rp 85,000 a tank.
Officially, a 12-kg tank is priced at Rp 51,000.

Traders in Selayar said the scarcity coupled with higher
transportation costs, from Rp 12,000 to Rp 15,000 a tank, were
responsible for the price hike.

A housewife, Rahma said she had been to four LPG agents in
Makassar, none of which had any fuel.

"All of them had no more LPG. The fuel price increases are
causing us big problems. We want to use kerosene but it's
expensive and hard to find, and when we use LPG it's also hard to
find. How can we poor people survive?" she said.

LPG shortages are also starting to spread to other cities,
with residents in Banderlampung saying supplies to that city had
almost vanished.

"We went to three shops and two gas stations to get the gas
but they had all ran out," Lia, a resident of Gulak Galik
subdistrict, told Antara.

Lampung councillor, Abdullah Fadri Auli, urged the government
to immediately deal with the scarcity.

"LPG gas has become one of people's basic needs, especially to
cook during the fasting month of Ramadhan, so don't make it hard
to find because it's already expensive," Abdullah said.