70 percent of industrial delivery orders for diesel oil not taken
Wednesday, May 9 2001 - 04:30 AM WIB
State oil and gas company Pertamina has revealed that industrial consumers bought only 30 percent of diesel oil stated in the delivery orders they had filed with Pertamina, and these consumers allegedly purchased subsidized diesel oil from public gas stations to supply the 70 percent of their fuel demand.
This practice has allegedly caused scarcity of diesel oil at a number of gas stations, according to Pertamina's director for downstream industries, Ariffi Nawawi.
"We suspect that they purchase diesel oil from a number of gas stations, and therefore there is a scarcity of diesel oil in a number of gas stations. That's what's happening now," Ariffi said.
To prevent such a practice to continue, Ariffi said, Pertamina, in cooperation with an independent auditor, was currently auditing fuel needs of its industrial customers.
For the first stage, Pertamina was auditing big industrial users, totaling about 100 companies, 20 of which had been audited. The next target of audit would be medium-sized industries, and then small-scaled industries.
The audit was to ensure how much diesel oil those industries would need, and from that audit result, Pertamina could gauge how much fuel Pertamina should supply to them. If there were differences in reality, then, it would be subject to investigation.
Ariffi said that Pertamina would also conduct market operation of diesel oil to ensure that subsidized diesel oil reached the designated target.
"But we realize that as long as there is difference in prices, it will be difficult for us to prevent it," he said.
One of the way to reduce the buying of subsidized diesel oil by industrial users, Ariffi said, Pertamina would cut the amount of fuel stated in their delivery orders in line with their actual take-up of fuels from Pertamina.
"There is no penalty for industrial users who do not take up fuels according to their delivery orders. So, we cannot take measures against them. The solution is that we will cut the amount of fuels stated in their delivery order in the following month, so that they would not do it again." (*)