PAL ready to bid for building Pertamina oil tankers

State shipyard PT PAL Indonesia was ready to join the bidding to build oil tankers for state oil and gas firm Pertamina of between 17,500 dead weight tons (DWT) and 30,000 DWT, DetikCom reported on Wednesday.

PAL president director Adwin Suryohadiprojo said his company wanted to construct three of the 12 tankers to be bought by Pertamina through a tender which will be opened soon.

Adwin said several Indonesian and international lenders were willing to provide funding for PAL to build the tankers. The creditors include Asia Pacific Capital from Australia and Indonesia?s state-owned Bank Mandiri.

PAL?s shipyard is located in Surabaya, East Java.

According to PAL spokesman Djunaidi, the company had built four tankers for Pertamina since 1983 of between 6,500 DWT and 17,500 DWT.

?PAL is now ready to leap forward by building 30,000 DWT tankers,? he said.

Pertamina president director Baihaki Hakim said earlier it needs at least 20 new tankers with capacity of between 5,000 and 30,000 DWT to transport the company?s crude and processed oil. The tankers will be acquired until 2008

International ship builders from Japan, China, South Korea and Singapore are expected to take part in Pertamina?s tender, company officials said.

Pertamina plans to reduce its dependence on chartered ships which at present account for some 80 percent of its tanker fleet. (Leo)