Pertamina extends contract to import crude oil from Saudi Arab

Pertamina has extended a contract to import crude oil from Arab Saudi?s oil company Aramco to feed its oil refinery plant in Cilacap, Central Java, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Monday.

Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro confirmed the extension of the contract on Saturday. He said that the new contract with Aramco had been signed recently.

He, however, did not touch any thing about issues related to Pertamina?s plan to import crude oil from Iran.

Pertamina earlier said that it would no longer import crude oil from Aramco and would instead buy the crude from other Arab countries such as Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Iran and Libya to cut import costs.

At present, Pertamina imports about 120,000 barrels per day of light crude to feed its Cilacap plant, which has a processing capacity of 325,000 bpd.

Although Indonesia is one of major il producers, it still imports the larger part of the raw material of its refinery plants, because the available crude oil does not meet the specification of the plants.(*)