Fuel imports fall by 178,000 bpd

By Febry Silaban

The total production capacity of Pertamina?s refineries has increased by 178,000 barrels per day (bpd) following the operation of the Residual Fluid Catalytic Cracking (RFCC) unit at the Cilacap refinery in Central Java province in 2015 and TPPI refinery in Tuban, East java.

"Thanks to the RFCC Cilacap, we now produce 91,000 bpd of additional gasoline, consisting of 61,000 bpd of Pertamax 92 and 30,000 bpd of Premium, while TPPI produces approximately 87,000 bpd of additional oil fuels," said Pertamina?s Processing Director Rachmad Hardadi in Jakarta.

As a result, Pertamina?s oil fuel imports have decreased. "With the operation of the RFCC Cilacap and TPPI refinery, the Premium import has decreased by 40 percent and the diesel oil import fell by 32-34 percent. Now we operate the refineries with a production capacity of 900,000 bpd," he said.

Fuel imports are expected to further fall as a result of modification of old refineries and construction of new refineries, Rachmat said adding Indonesia could be completely free of oil fuel imports starting in 2024.

Editing by Johannes Simbolon