Pertamina plans to acquire Trans Pacific

State-owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina plans to take over Southeast Asia's largest chemical company PT Trans Pacific Petrochemical Indotama (TPPI) in a bid to further boost the company's petrochemical and refinery business, Koran Tempo reported Tuesday.

The company's plan to take over the chemical giant was unveiled during a meeting with State Minister for State Enterprises Sofyan Djalil on Monday.

"We are quite serious in our plan to take over TPPI," Rukmi Hadihartini, Pertamina's director for processing, said following the meeting.

The secretary of the ministry for state enterprises Said Didu said that the acquisition plan received a positive response from Minister Sofyan. "Pertamina has a good chance to acquire the company, because with the completion of its financial audit, the company has no difficulties to raise loans from banks to finance the acquisition," he added.

TPPI's petrochemical plant in Tuban, East Java has a combined capacity of 3.6 million tonne per annum (TPA) of petrochemicals products, comprising 1 million TPA of aromatics (500,000 tonne paraxylene, 200,000 tonne benzene, and 150,000 ton toluene), 1 million TPA of naphtha, and 1.6 million TPA of kerosene and diesel.

At present, Pertamina has a 15 percent stake in the company. Tuban Petrochemical Industries (Tuban Petro) holds the other 59.5 percent, with Itochu Corp, Siam Cement Pcl and Sojitz Corp. controlling the remaining shares.

Tuban Petro is 70 percent owned by the government through PT Perusahaan Pengelola Asset (PPA), and the other 30 percent are controlled by Honggo Wendratmo through PT Silakencana Tirtalestari. (*)