Balongan's new high-octane fuel refinery to be inaugurated Sunday
Saturday, August 27 2005 - 02:30 AM WIB
The new refinery plant being built under Pertamina's Langit Biru or blue sky project as part of the expansion of the company's Balongan refinery, would be able to produce environmentally friendly High Octane Mogas Component (HOMC) fuel with capacity of 52,000 barrels per day and liquefied petroleum gas of about 200 tons per day.
The construction of the new fuel processing plant which began in 2003 absorbed a total investment of about US$288 million. PT Rekayasa Industri, which has been appointed as the main contractor in the project, cooperates in a consortium and also Toyo Engineering Corp in the construction of the plant.
Harijanto K, the manager of the Langit Biru Project, said that the unleaded fuel refinery has three processing units; Naphtha hydro cracker with a capacity of 52,000 bpd, platformer with a capacity of 29,000 bpd and Penex with a capacity of 23,000 bpd.
According to him, the fuel will be transmitted through pipelines to Pertamina's fuel receiving terminal in Plumpang, Tanjung Periok. "With the operation of the plant, Pertamina will be able to significantly reduce the import of HOMC fuel as about 11 million of the HOMC fuel need can be provided by the new plant," he said, adding that at present, Pertamina imports about 12 million barrels of HOMC fuel a year.
Meanwhile Ignatius Tallulembang, the head of Pertamina's division in charge of the Balongan refinery complex, said that the existing plants would be able only to produce about 118,000 bpd, or about 95 percent of its total capacity due to a technical problem at its RCC unit. (maya)