Pertamina to shut refinery

Pertamina to shut refinery

SINGAPORE (Reuter): Indonesia's state-owned oil company Pertamina will shut one of its two crude distillation units (CDU) at its biggest refinery complex at Cilacap in September, a refinery spokesman said yesterday.

It will shut the bigger of the two units, which has a capacity of over 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) for about 30 days, he told Reuters by telephone.

Trading sources in Singapore had said the refinery might be shut during end July or early August.

The second unit, with a capacity of over 100,000 bpd, will be shut for annual maintenance in 1997, the spokesman said.

He said the refinery is now undergoing debottlenecking or upgrading works, which would raise the capacity at the bigger unit to 230,000 bpd while the smaller unit would be increased to 118,000 bpd.

The refinery in Central Java was shut on October 24 after Pertamina said lightning triggered a fire which engulfed seven tanks containing kerosene, jet fuel and naphtha for domestic use.

The refinery's operations were restored to 90 percent capacity in January and normal operations resumed by April.