Pertamina raises January fuel imports on refinery fault

State oil and gas firm PT Pertamina will raise fuel imports in January because repairs at its West Java refinery will take longer than expected, the Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

Pertamina says it may need 9.8 million barrels this month while waiting for completion of work on the Balongan plant in West Java, the company?s marketing director Ari Soemarno said in an interview with Bloomberg in Jakarta on Tuesday. Last week, the company expected to purchase 9.5 million barrels.

?It looks like the repair works won?t be completed until early February,? Soemarno said.

Pertamina monopolizes sales of subsidized fuel in Indonesia. The country may burn 261.7 million kiloliters of subsidized fuel next year, or about 90 percent of Indonesia?s total fuel consumption.

Indonesia, the second-smallest member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) by output, imports about a third of its oil products each year because its daily refining capacity of 1.06 million barrels isn?t sufficient to meet domestic demand.

Pertamina in early December planned to import up to 9 million barrels of oil products for January delivery, according to Soemarno.

?There is a fault at one of Balongan?s catalytic cooler,? Soemarno said. ?It?s only a small problem, but it cuts production a bit.?

The Balongan refinery, which has a crude distallation unit with capacity of 125,000 barrels per day, accounts for about 10 percent of Pertamina?s refining capacity. It supplies fuel to the capital Jakarta and West Java province, one of the country?s most densely populated areas. (*)