Government cancels mini refinery tender, assigns project to Pertamina
Wednesday, April 26 2017 - 03:26 AM WIB
Petromindo
The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources has finally decided to cancel the tender process for a planned mini oil refinery project in Maluku Province, and has decided to assign state-owned oil and gas firm to develop the project.
Director General of Oil and Gas at the ministry IGN Wiratmaja Puja said on Tuesday that the decision to stop the tender process and to handover the project to Pertamina was made following direction from Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Ignasius Jonan. Pertamina is seen to have better experience in refinery project, and the state firm will also be the off taker of fuel products from the refinery.
The planned mini refinery project will have a capacity of 3,000 bpd, which will be supplied by crude oil from the Oseil and Bula fields in Maluku. The project is also known as Cluster VIII mini refinery project.
The directorate general of oil and gas said previously that five of seven participants in the PQ tender have passed to enter the next bidding stage for the Cluster VIII mini refinery project. The five are PT Alam Bersami Sentosa; PT Tri Wahana Universal; consortium of PT Remaja Bangun Kencana, Changling Petrochemical, and Engineering Design Co Ltd; PT. Aliansi Lintas Teknologi; and consortium of PT Harmoni Drilling Services, and Oceanus Co Ltd.
The government plans to develop mini refineries in eight clusters to help improve the cost efficiency of marginal oil fields located in remote regions.
The eight clusters include Cluster I-North Sumatra (Rantau and Pangkalan Susu), Cluster II-Selat Panjang Malaka (EMP Malacca Strait and Petroselat), Cluster III-Riau (Tonga, Siak, Pendalian, Langgak, West Area, Kisaran), Cluster IV-Jambi (Palmerah, Mengoepeh, Lemang and Karang Agung), Cluster V-Sumatera Selatan (Merangin II and Ariodamar), Cluster VI-Kalimantan Selatan (Tanjung), Cluster VII-North Kalimantan (Bunyu, Sembakung, Mamburungan and Pamusian Juwata), and Cluster VIII-Maluku (Oseil and Bula).
The mini refinery will have maximum capacity of 20,000 bpd, and investment for 10,000-bpd refinery is estimated at around Rp 2.5 trillion.
Wiratmaja said that it is still unclear whether Pertamina will also be assigned to develop the mini refinery projects in the other clusters. But he said that Pertamina will be allowed to have partners in the project.
Meanwhile, Pertamina Spokesman Adiatma Sardjito was quoted by Bisnis Indonesia as saying that the company will still have to review the new assignment as the company is also planning to develop a number of much larger oil refineries. (*)