Pertamina to shut down Balikpapan refinery

JAKARTA (JP): State oil and gas company Pertamina will halt production at one unit of its refinery in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan province, for more than three weeks next month to allow it to carry out essential maintenance work.

Spokesman for Pertamina's downstream directorate Adiatma Sardjito said that Pertamina had scheduled to turn around Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) No. V of Unit II early this year.

"Maintenance will be ongoing for 25 days next month," he told The Jakarta Post.

The Balikpapan refinery has two production units, including Unit I which has a processing capacity of 220,000 barrels of crude oil per day, and Unit II -- the one to be shut down for maintenance -- which has a processing capacity of 60,000 bpd.

The Balikpapan refinery, which supplies fuel to the eastern regions of Indonesia, including East Java, is the second largest refinery in Indonesia after the 348,000 bpd refinery in Cilacap, Central Java.

Pertamina has eight refineries across the country with a combined processing capacity of about 1.055 million bpd.

Adi said the stoppage of production at Balikpapan's Unit II would not disrupt fuel supplies to eastern Indonesia and East Java as the output from Unit I would cover the shortfall.

"We guarantee there will be no fuel shortage," he said.

Last year, repair work at the 125,000 bpd Balongan refinery in West Java caused fuel shortages in Jakarta and cities in West Java province, forcing the government to increase fuel imports to cover the shortfall.

According to Pertamina data, Indonesia consumes about 52 million kiloliters of fuel per year. The state company imports between 15 percent and 20 percent of this amount. (iwa)