Pertamina begins FEED for Balikpapan refinery upgrade project

State-owned oil and gas firm PT Pertamina started today (Thursday) the front end engineering design (FEED) work for the Balikpapan refinery upgrade project, both phase I and II.

Pertamina said that the FEED work was started although the basic engineering design (BED), which started in July, has yet to be completed. The BED is expected to be only completed in January 2017. ?In normal project, FEED is started after BED is completed. But for the Balikpapan (refinery upgrade project), we do it in parallel to accelerate the process so that the target for the physical construction to start mid 2017 can be achieved. We don?t want to tolerate delay in realizing the target for Balikpapan refinery to start operation in September 2019,? said Pertamina Processing Director Rachmad Hardadi in the statement.

The statement said that Pertamina is teaming up with Bechtel International in completing the FEED. ?The FEED work will be held in three Bechtel locations which are Houston, London, and New Delhi,? Rachmad said, adding that Pertamina will send 80 of its engineers to the locations to help complete the FEED. Together, with BED, Pertamina will assign a total of 200 engineers.

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The Balikpapan refinery upgrade project will be carried out in two phases, Pertamina President Director Dwi Soetjipto said previously. The first phase is to increase production capacity of crude distillate unit to 360 bpd from 260 bpd. The second phase covers flexibility and fuel products quality from Euro II standard to Euro IV.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak