Pertamina officials named suspects

Pertamina officials named suspects

The Jakarta Police named two officials at state oil and gas
company PT Pertamina's Plumpang fuel depot in North Jakarta as
suspects in a scheme to steal an estimated of 100,000 liters fuel
every day from the depot to some illegal fuel depots.

The suspects identified as UF, the head of the marketing
department, and SM, the head of technical department.

"Both of them were supposed to face questioning today, but
they didn't show up. We will summons them again next week for the
second time," head of environmental and resources department of
the Jakarta Police, Adj. Sr. Comr. Ahmad Haydar, said on
Thursday.

The case was unveiled after the police raided some illegal
fuel depots around Jakarta, Tangerang and Bekasi. The police
found that the illegal depots had continuous supplies in large
amounts from the same source.

After tracking down the source, the police found that the
meters from 39 master pumps out of the total 88 master pumps were
inaccurate.

Plumpang is a large depot supplying fuel like gasoline,
kerosene, and diesel oil to all fuel distributors in the city.

Police suspected that some of the pump meters were
deliberately engineered to show an incorrect amount of fuel being
filled into the tankers.

Every day, Plumpang depot pumps fuel into about 1,500 vehicle
tankers.

After questioning several officials from the Measures and
Weight Directorate, the police found that the officials
calibrated meters at Plumpang only if the Pertamina officials
called them to check the meters.

According to the regulation, the officials have to calibrate
meters regularly once in a year.-- JP