Elnusa Petrofin wants mini gas stations to sell premium
Wednesday, December 6 2000 - 04:00 AM WIB
PT Elnusa Petrofin has lobbied its parent company, state oil and gas firm Pertamina, to allow the company's sanctioned mini gas station to sell premium after June 2001 when Pertamina abandons the production of special premium for motorcycle (SM-BB2L).
Elnusa's mini gas stations currently only sells BB2L fuel, that is not popular even among motorcycle riders.
The head of Elnusa's Central Java and Yogyakarta division, Yudhi Achsan, said the best solution for owners of mini stations would be to allow them selling premium because those mini stations had been facing difficulties in finding BB2L fuel since August.
"We have got a letter from the headquarters (Elnusa) that they had been conducting talks with Pertamina since Nov. 23 to allow mini gas stations to sell premium after Pertamina stops producing BB2L," he said.
Yudhi noted that to transfer mini gas station into selling premium, Pertamina may require them to change their manual pumping unit with the automatic or digital pumping units, like those employed by normal gas stations.
However, the chairman of the Association of Mini Gas Station Owners' Central Java branch, Edy Wiranto, said that owners of mini gas stations would not be able to afford buying the digital pumping units for their stations.
"The establishment of mini gas stations were especially designed for small-scaled businesses. So it would burden them if they are required to buy the digital pumping units that now cost around Rp 40 million a unit," he said.
He blamed Elnusa for the scarcity of BB2L fuel that forced around 70 percent of mini gas stations in Central Java to stop operation. He demanded Elnusa to continue supplying BB2L fuel to mini gas stations as stipulated in the contract.
But Pertamina has been phasing out the production of BB2L fuel. Pertamina has been reducing the output of its BB2L since August. The production of BB2L fuel would be cut by around 50 percent in the period of January- March 2001, and Pertamina will abandon its production altogether in June 2001. (*)