Pertamina to close processing unit

Pertamina to close processing unit

JAKARTA: PT Pertamina, Indonesia's state oil and gas company, said it plans to close a crude-oil processing unit for 20 days at its Balikpapan plant in February for maintenance.

The company will close the so-called crude distillation unit, which can process 60,000 barrels of oil a day into fuel, between mid to late February, said Suroso Atmomartoyo, Pertamina's processing director.

Pertamina delayed the Balikpapan refinery unit's shutdown, which was scheduled for January to February because of a technical fault at a secondary oil refining unit at its Cilacap refinery in Central Java earlier this month.

The refinery at Balikpapan has the capacity to process 260,000 barrels of oil a day. The Cilacap refinery, the biggest of Pertamina's 10 refineries, can process 348,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Indonesia doesn't process enough fuel to meet domestic consumption, forcing the OPEC member to import fuels. -- Bloomberg