Pertamina sells extra crude from Cilacap

Pertamina sells extra crude from Cilacap

SINGAPORE (Reuter): Marketing affiliates of Indonesia's state oil firm Pertamina have sold Cilacap refinery's surplus crude oil, trade sources said.

Cilacap has been shut since last Tuesday after fire damaged some storage tanks. Some sources said most allocations by Pertamina to the affiliates had found buyers for prompt loading, and at respectable premiums considering the nature of the sales.

The sources said Pertamina had to dispose of 700,000 barrels of Belida, 600,000 barrels of Arjuna, 300,000 barrels of Attaka, 330,000 barrels of Minas and 300,000 barrels of Arun.

Sources said Belida was traded at Indonesian Contract Price (ICP) plus 30-35 cents a barrel and Arjuna at ICP plus 15 cents. Premiums for the surplus crude were about 10 cents under what Indonesian crudes could have achieved in normal circumstances, they said.

Buyers were mostly major oil companies purchasing for regional affiliates and Asian refineries.

Cilacap is expected to stay shut for two to three weeks after a fire damaged seven tanks out of a total of 156 tanks at the refinery.

Cilacap has a 100,000 bpd crude distillation unit (CDU) running on Saudi light and Iran light crudes and a 200,000 bpd CDU running on indigenous crudes.

The allocations by Pertamina amounted to over 10 days of processing at Cilacap's 200,000 bpd CDU.

"The deals done are the initial first action. Pertamina will now have time to decide on other options," an Asian trader said. "Crude demand has not been filled up in Asia, so it was able to absorb Indonesia's barrels."