Pertamina Admits It Could No Longer Hold Market Prices Before Raising Pertamax

Pertamina Patra Niaga’s Vice President of Commercial & Shipping Business Development, Sigit Setiawan, has explained the reason the company finally raised the price of non-subsidised fuels such as Pertamax. The main reason was to maintain stock availability. Sigit explained that since the outbreak of war involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, the price of fuel imported by Pertamina from abroad has been higher than the price of fuel sold domestically. “Some time ago we were still able to hold it, but why can’t we hold it today? Because we have to ensure the availability of goods in the market,” Sigit said during an Energy Gathering entitled “Energy Transition in Mitigating Global Conflict” at IPB University, Bogor, West Java, on Wednesday. He continued that at the time, Pertamina understood the government’s very difficult position as it had to maintain people’s purchasing power. If Pertamina had adjusted fuel prices in accordance with world oil price fluctuations, production costs would have also increased. This condition was feared to be an obstacle to economic growth movement. “If production costs rise, it will affect the selling price of the resulting products. That means market prices will rise. Can consumers afford to buy? It’s certainly difficult,” Sigit said. Therefore, Pertamina had been holding the price of non-subsidised fuel from March 2026 until early June 2026. However, this step impacted Pertamina’s ability to purchase fuel. “Pertamina imported fuel at high prices, then we sold it domestically at low prices. The money we received (from domestic sales) to buy fuel on the market (imports) no longer obtained the same volume,” Sigit stated. The gap between Pertamina’s income and expenditure meant the state-owned oil company could no longer import fuel at the same volume. The implication was that the volume of fuel imported by Pertamina continued to decline, thereby affecting fuel stocks. “We do not want this condition to continue like this, so that the availability of energy products in the community decreases. When there is peak demand, this condition (declining energy stocks) will become a problem,” Sigit said.