Muba regency to build mini-refinery plant

Musi Banyuasin or Muba, one of regencies in South Sumatra, plans to build a refinery plant with capacity of 500 barrels per day to process crude oil produced from hundreds of old oil wells in the regency, Sriwijaya Post reported on Tuesday.

The mini refinery plant will be built at the Babattomanan district with total investment of about Rp 10 billion. The plant will be operated by PT Petro Muba, a company owned by the regency?s administration in cooperation with PT Gajah Dagang.

President of PT Petro Muba, Robert Hari, said that the entire fund needed for the construction of the mini refinery plant would come from the regency?s budget.

He said that the construction of the refinery plant would start later in December. "We hope the construction works could be completed within eight months," he said. He added that the mini refinery plant is one of small size refineries to be built in the regency to process oil production from about 900 old oil wells in the regency.

The oil wells, mostly built under the Dutch colonial era, are still productive although their production capacities are quite limited. At present the crude oil from such wells is traditionally processed by the local farmers. (*)