Pertamina rejects Setdco?s offer to handle oil import from Iran

State owned oil and gas company Pertamina has rejected an offer from PT Setdco, a company owned by businessman Setiawan Djody, to handle the company?s crude oil imports from Iran.

Pertamina?s president Baihaki Hakim said in Jakarta on Thursday that the state owned oil and gas company would, instead, import the crude oil directly from Iran.

Baihaki said that Pertamina is able to handle the crude oil import alone without the help of Setdco, which asked the state oil company to pay a brokerage fee of 10 U.S. cent for every barrel of crude oil it would import.

According to Baihaki, Pertamina had met with the Iranian oil minister last week and told him about his refusal to buy the crude oil through a broker. ?However, there was some one came to me after the meeting offering a service to handle the import purchase with a fee of 10 US cent per barrel,? he said.

Baihaki suspected that the Iranian minister had not told his subordinates about Pertamina?s refusal to use a third party in the crude oil imports so that there were someone appearing to offer the brokerage service even after Pertamina expressed its rejection.

Pertamina planned to import crude oil from Iran to feed its refinery plant in Cilacap, which at present still relies on crude oil from Saudi Arabia to carry out its activities.

Baihaki said that importing crude oil from Iran would be cheaper than those from Saudi Arabia. (*)