Oil processing deal with Singapore will inflict loss to Pertamina

Pertamina?s plan to sign a crude processing deal with Caltex Singapore Ltd?s refinery will cause a financial loss to the state-owned oil company of about US$1.2 million per month, Koran Tempo reported on Monday.

An unidentified source said Pertamina would a sign contract with Caltex Singapore Ltd to process the state owned oil and gas company?s crude oil of about 1.5 million barrels per month or 50,000 barrels per day. The light oil crude will be imported from Saudi Arabia. At present, the Arabian light crude is processed by Pertamina?s refinery plant in Cilacap, Central Java.

The refinery which will process the light oil crude is jointly owned by Caltex (30 percent) , Singapore Refining Company( 40 percent) and British Petroleum (30 percent). Its processing capacity if about 100,000 barrels per day.

Besides importing processed oil products, Pertamina also imports light crude oil from Saudi Arabia of about 100,000 barrels per day. The crude oil is processed at the Cilacap refinery plant.

The source said that the planned cooperation scheme with Caltex would certainly cause a significant loss to Pertamina. ?Why should Pertamina process it in Singapore, if the Cilacap plant could do the job,? he added.

He said that Pertamina would have pay an additional cost of about 80 U.S. cent for every barrels of the 50,000 barrels of the Arabian light crude to be processed in Singapore. The estimated monthly loss will reach about $1.2 million.(*)