Pertamina eyes crude processing deal

Pertamina eyes crude processing deal

JAKARTA: State-owned oil and gas company Pertamina is seeking another refiner in Asia to process 32,500 a day of crude from its Balongan refinery, Baihaki Hakim, the company's president director, said on Friday.

The company needs another refiner to run crude as the 125,000- barrel per day (bpd) Balongan refinery is scheduled to start a turnaround in August.

Pertamina has already chosen Singapore Petroleum Co., to process 62,500 bpd of Minas crude and 30,000 bpd of Iranian light crude for at least two months - August and September - and possibly longer.

This means Pertamina must find another refiner, in addition to SPC, to meet the 32,500-bpd shortfall.

Baihaki refused to name the refiners Pertamina had approached, only saying they are from China and other Asian countries. -- Dow Jones