Lubricants must have registration numbers: Govt
Lubricants must have registration numbers: Govt
JAKARTA (JP): The government said on Thursday that all
lubricants sold in the country should have registration numbers
starting as of Oct. 1, to protect consumers.
Secretary to the director general of oil and gas at the
Ministry of Mines and Energy Wiranto Wiromartono said the policy
was needed to protect consumers from the entry of questionable
oil-based imported products once the Asian Free Trade Area (Afta)
became effective in 2003.
"This is also needed to reduce the circulation of fake
lubricants that thus far has been difficult to control," Wiranto
was quoted as saying by Antara news agency, on the sidelines of a
workshop to publicize the new policy.
State oil and gas company Pertamina currently holds the
monopoly rights over oil-based lubricant products.
He said that under the policy, lubricant products without
registration numbers could not be sold and must be recalled from
the market.
To obtain the registration number, he said, producers of
lubricants could register their products at the directorate
general of oil and gas.
Wiranto further said that the lubricant products would undergo
several procedures before obtaining a number, including
laboratory tests by the Institute of Oil and Gas (Lemigas).
To avoid unnecessary concern from the public, he urged that
producers themselves withdraw products that had no registration
numbers.
He said that out of hundreds of lubricant products in the
domestic market, only 65 producers have registered their products
at his office, while only 21 brands actually owned registration
numbers.
Wiranto said that the government also wanted clear regulations
to protect local lubricant producers from a flood of foreign oil-
based lubricant products.
"We better have regulation, because if we open the oil-based
lubricant market, which Pertamina now owns, there'll be plenty of
domestic and foreign investors interested," he explained.
Sharing Wiranto's view, Chairman of the Indonesian Lubricants
Association (Aspelindo) A.P. Batubara said the new policy would
help local producers compete against foreign producers.
"This policy is not market protection, but it simply clarifies
the rules of the game, while also protecting Indonesian
consumers," he said.
Batubara, who is also president of Penzoil producer PT
Wiraswasta Gemilang Indonesia, added that local lubricant
producers were capable of meeting domestic demands.
He said that the producers' production capacity was some
500,000 tons of lubricants per year, whereas local demand was
only 400,000 tons.(bkm)