Pertamina completes crude oil purchases

Pertamina completes crude oil purchases

SINGAPORE (Reuters): Indonesian state oil company Pertamina has bought around 100,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) of Asian crude oil in the spot market to cover all of its August requirement, traders said yesterday.

Traders said exact details of the trades were uncertain, but that they include purchases of one August lifting cargo each of Tapis, Miri and Bintulu crudes from Malaysian state-owned Petronas.

Pertamina also bought a cargo of light sweet Australian Varanus crude from Japanese trader Mitsui, and another cargo of Tapis from European major British Petroleum, they said.

In addition, the state monopoly bought a Challis/Jabiru cargo from Australian producer BHP Petroleum, but the deal was done through Itochu Corp.

Market talk that Pertamina had bought a heavy sweet Vietnamese Bach Ho from Sumitomo Corp, was denied by the company.

This is only the second month that Pertamina has covered its requirements on its own. It previously depended on affiliates Perta Oil and Permindo for crude and product supplies.

Traders said the volumes that Pertamina imported in August is similar to that bought in July, and close to the volumes that Perta Oil and Permindo had been importing monthly, before their relationship with Pertamina was severed.

The two affiliates are majority owned by friends and family members of former Indonesian president Soeharto.

Traders said there were still some worries from sellers about Pertamina's payment ability due to the country's economic problems.

In July, some crude purchase deals which Pertamina had agreed on fell through as the company failed to produce agreed letters of credit from international banks.

Apart from the spot purchases, Pertamina also has a term contract to buy 113,000-bpd of Arab Light crude from Saudi Arabia, a Pertamina official said.

In June, a mines and energy ministry spokesman said that state-owned Saudi Aramco had signed a contract to supply Pertamina with Arab Light crude for a year from July.

In other development, traders said yesterday Taiwan state owned Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC) has bought two Duri crude cargoes for August lifting by tender at around 50 cents per barrel over the official Indonesian crude Price (ICP).

The cargoes, each of 270,000 barrels, were bought from an equity producer and a Japanese trading house, they said.

The tender, which was opened to only a few sellers, closed on Thursday and sought Duri barrels for any August lifting.

This is the second time that CPC has bought Duri on the spot market, due a failure of its term supplier, Perta Oil, to deliver. In July, CPC bought from a Japanese trader at a small premium over ICP.

CPC has a term contract to buy 15,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) of Duri from Perta Oil which will expire at the end of this year.

Traders said that it was unclear what would happen to Perta's term contract with CPC, but expect CPC to issue a tender again to cover it September Duri requirements.