Oct. fuel import short 5%

State oil and gas firm PT Pertamina is suffering from a shortfall of 5 percent in its fuel import requirement for October and has warned of difficulties in obtaining additional supplies with some refineries in the United States being shut down due to Hurricane Katrina and Ritas.

The company is still needs one or two cargoes of fuel products for October, Pertamina's trading and marketing director Ari Soemarno said on Friday.

The company needs to import about 15 million barrels of fuel products and 12 million barrels of crude oil next month.

"The market is extremely tight and prices are very high," Ari said. "If there is even the slightest problem with our cash flow, our suppliers will take the goods to the United States."

The U.S. has lost the capacity to produce one million barrels per day of fuel products after refineries were hit by the recent Hurricane Katrina, prompting it to seek for more fuel imports.

Hurricane Rita, however, is weakening and may not directly hit parts of the Texas coast with a heavy concentration of refineries as feared before.

Crude oil futures in New York fell as much as 1.5 percent to US$65.51 a barrel on Friday. Oil prices touched a record $70.85 a barrel on Aug. 30, the day after Katrina made landfall.

Pertamina has long-term deals with several producers to supply some 60 percent of the fuel imports it needs every month.

"We still need to secure 40 percent of our supplies for November, and we have to get into the market right away," said Ari.

This month, Pertamina will import 17 million barrels of fuel products and 14 million barrels in November.

Less fuel imports are needed in the next two months as the Cilacap refinery in Central Java, one unit of which is currently shut down for maintenance, will be operating at full capacity again and demand is expected to decline as the economy slows down in the fasting month. -- JP