Pertamina mulls raising output

Pertamina mulls raising output

SINGAPORE (Reuter): Indonesian state oil firm Pertamina will decide early next week whether to raise production at its refinery in Balongan to cover oil product shortages following a fire at storage tanks in Cilacap, a senior Pertamina refinery source said.

The 125,000-barrel-per-day Export-Oriented Refinery (EXOR-1) in West Java is now operating at 80 percent capacity.

"The processing rate for November may need to be raised," he said. The increase would be at least 10 percent, depending on Pertamina's allocation of crude oil for export by its marketing affiliates for November, he said.

In view of the current emergency situation, the increase in crude throughput would be made in stages within a few days to a week after a decision is made, the source said.

Duri makes up 80 percent of crude processed in EXOR-1, while Minas makes up the remaining 20 percent.

EXOR-1 is not likely to face technical problems in raising its processing rate, the source said.

The processing rate was increased to 95 percent throughout August, and the facility has occasionally run at 100 percent capacity without much problems, he said.

He also said operations at the 300,000-bpd Cilacap refinery in East Java are expected to resume by late next week. The refinery was shut when seven out of 156 storage tanks holding jet fuel, kerosene and naphtha, caught fire on Oct. 24. The fire continued for three days.

Pertamina has also decided to raise production, especially for jet fuel, at its Balikpapan facility in Kalimantan and the Dumai refinery in Sumatra, company sources said.

Indonesia lost 40,000 tons of jet fuel in the fire. Lost production of jet fuel from the Cilacap shutdown would be 40,000 bpd.