Construction of Pertamina's Tuban refinery plant postponed

Pertamina's plan to build an oil refinery plant in Tuban, East Java this year has been delayed because the state owned oil and gas company Pertamina faces difficulties to find the right partners to jointly develop the refinery plant.

"It will be impossible to begin the construction of the refinery plant this year," the director of Pertamina's processing Suroso Atmomartoyo said in Jakarta Tuesday.

According to him, besides the difficulties in finding the strategic partners in building and operating the oil refinery, the tight competition in finding the vendors for the project equipment was also the main reason why the project should be delayed.

The refinery which would cost Pertamina about US$1.5-2.0 billion to build would have a capacity to process crude oil of between 150,000 and 200,000 barrels per day. Its operation would raise the company's total fuel production to about 1.050 million barrels per day.

Pertamina said earlier that it would team up with Chinese company Shanghai Petroechemical Co (Sinopec) to the Tuban refinery plant. But until now, the Chinese company has not decided whether or not it would go ahead with its plan to join the refinery project. (Godang)