Pertamina to shut cracker

Pertamina to shut cracker

SINGAPORE (Reuters): Indonesia's state oil company Pertamina will shut down its 22,500 barrels-per-day hydrocracker at its Balikpapan refinery for a month from mid-April for maintenance, industry sources said yesterday.

Pertamina's Balikpapan refinery in Kalimantan has two crude distillation units of 200,000 and 60,000 barrels per day.

The refinery's two hydrocrackers of the same capacity are attached to the larger unit, but the other hydrocracker underwent maintenance in July last year and will continue to run, sources said.

As the hydrocrackers cracks heavier oil to produce lighter oil products, sources said the shutdown is expected to back out some 500,000 barrels of low sulphur waxy residue (LSWR) in April.

Indonesia allocated 3.4 million barrels of LSWR in March and is expected to allocate more for April in an announcement due next week, they said.