Pertamina has Rp 22 trillion “sleeping assets”

State-owned oil and gas company Pertamina has assets worth Rp 22 trillion, which are not productive. Most of these unproductive assets are in the form of lands, empty buildings, Kompas and Harian Ekonomi Neraca newspapers reported in their Thursday editions.

Pertamina, a limited liability company, currently has Rp 100 trillion worth of assets.

He did not provide further details on the assets but once, one Pertamina official said the 46-year old company has assets in each and every part of the country.

The company would try to utilize the "sleeping assets" in order to get profits, Ariffi said during a hearign with the House of Representatives' Commission VIII in Jakarta Wednesday.

"In case we can’t do that, those assets will be sold immediately and the proceeds will be used by Pertamina for its development," he said, adding the assets would be sold accoding to proper procedures and transparently.

Pertamina now has 14 subsidiaries, which all have established 46 units. The subsidiaries which are not productive will be restructured. But if they are still in losses, Pertamina will either sell them or close them, he said.

According to Pertamina’s commissioner Syafruddin A. Temenggung, the state of Pertamina’s subsidiaries is alarming because the return on equity (ROE) of several companies is just 7.2 percent.

For example, Pelita Air Service has its ROE at 1.68 percent, Patra Jasa at 5.77 percent and Patra Dok Dumai at 2.97 percent. (*)