Fuel imports reach 109.5 million barrels this year: Pertamina

State oil and gas firm PT Pertamina?s total fuel imports may reach about 109.5 million barrels this year, an increase of about 7 percent from about 102.9 million barrels last year, the company's spokesman Wisnuntoro said in Jakarta Wednesday.

He said Pertamina imported the fuels because output from its own refineries could not meet the national demand which reached about 1.3 million barrels per day. The fuel imports are used to meet the supply gap of about 300,000 barrels a day.

Wisnuntoro said that the company's fuel imports for next year might increase by between 6 percent and 7 percent or about the same with the growth rate of the fuel demand this year.

Pertamina has estimated that the total volume of the subsidized fuels would reach between 37 million and 38 million kiloliters this year. It is higher than the allocation set out in the revised 2007 state budget in which the government would provide subsidy for the sales of 36.1 million kiloliters of oil fuel, comprising of 16.6 million kiloliters of Premium gasoline, 9.6 million kiloliters of kerosene and 9.9 million kiloliters of diesel. (*)