Govt to lift subsidies on industrial diesel oil

The government plans to lift subsidies for industrial diesel oil (IDO) and leave the pricing for IDO to the market mechanism, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources said on Wednesday night.

"It means that that particular fuel will not be sold in subsidized prices, but it will be left to market mechanism to decide, just like in the pricing of avtur (aviation turbo fuel) and avgas (aviation gasoline)," he said.

He said the lifting of subsidies for industrial diesel oil would not create any impact to the people in general and thus, it would not cause any political and social backlash. Besides, the demand for industrial diesel oil was not that high.

So far, the government still subsidizes premium, diesel oil, industrial diesel oil, kerosene.

Touching on the oil and gas bill, Purnomo said that by the end of this month, the government would submit the bill to the House of Representatives for deliberation before it is passed into law.

"What's certain in the bill is that the government will not liberalize the upstream level of the oil and gas industry," he said.

Purnomo also explained that the fate of state oil firm Pertamina and state electricity firm PT PLN was still not clear, whether they would be under his control or under the control of the Ministry of Finance or other institutions. It would be up to the President to decide. (*)