National fuel stock in critical situation: Pertamina

Pertamina's fuel stock to fulfill the country's fuel needs has dropped to critical level due to the inability of the state owned oil and gas company to import more fuel during the past several weeks, Kompas reported on Thursday.

Pertamina's spokesman Hanung Budya said in Jakarta on Wednesday that the company could not import more fuel due to the lack of funds while the government's fuel subsidy that could be used to finance the fuel import had not been disbursed.

"The condition of the national fuel stock is now in the yellow light," he said. "If there is an interruption in the fuel distribution either due to whether or other factor, the fuel supply in certain provinces will be seriously affected," he added.

According to him, the fuel stock in the country's seven major fuel depots are only enough for two days of supply. Normally, each depot should have stock of at least for three days.

The government agreed to disburse the fuel subsidy of about Rp 5.1 trillion to Pertamina during a limited cabinet meeting last week, but the ministry of finance had not yet disburse the funds to the state owned oil and gas company.

Pertamina needs the funds to import crude oil and fuel products because the national crude production is not enough to meet the domestic fuel needs. Indonesia needs to import at least 40,000 kiloliters of fuel product a day to meet the fuel demand which reaches about 170,000 kiloliters day. The local refineries are only able to produce about 130,000 kiloliters of fuel per day.

Hanung said that Pertamina needs between US$800 million and $900 million to finance fuel import a month, while the cash it held in its coffer was only between Rp 3 trillion and Rp 4 trillion. (*)