Pertamina plans to import 50,000 bpd crude from Algeria

State-owned oil, gas firm PT Pertamina said on Friday that it would import 10,000-50,000 barrel per day (bpd) of crude oil from Algeria to meet its refineries' neeeds.

Pertamina?s Communication VP Wisnuntoro told reporters that the the import plan came to follow up the the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the the Algerian and Indonesian governments on June 30 in Jakarta. The MoU was signed by Indonesia's Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro and Algerian counterpart Chakib Khelil, who is also the president of OPEC.

He said the crude imports from Algeria are expected to meet some of Pertamina's crude import needs. Pertamina needs to import up to 350,000 bpd of crude for its refineries.

He said that Pertamina would ask Algerian government to lower its crude price. ?The crude price should be below Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS) price, because if not, we would better buy from Singapore,? he said.

Meanwhile, Pertamina's President Ari Soemarno recalled that Pertamina once imported crude from Algeria. Given the distance between both countries, Pertamina had to buy the crude in a large volume and used very large crude carrier (VLCC) for transportation it in order to cut the cost.

It takes three weeks to transport the crude from the country.

Algeria produces crude of light type, which can be used to feed Pertamina's Plaju and Balikpapan refineries, according to Ari. (godang)