Pertamina restarts Balongan refinery
Cilacap refinery to be shut down in September
Friday, July 21 2000 - 04:00 AM WIB
The state owned oil and gas company Pertamina has restarted the operation of the 125,000 barrel per day Balongan refinery at half capacity, and expects it to be running at full capacity in several days.
"We restarted the Balongan refinery Wednesday day with around 50 percent of capacity in operation," Ariffi Nawawi told reporters, adding that the refinery would fully operational in several days.
The Balongan refinery, located in West Java, had been shutdown for one month. The temporary closure had forced Pertamina to import gasoline this week to resolve the resulting gasoline shortages and price hikes.
The Balongan refinery accounts for about 12 percent of domestic gasoline needs.
Meanwhile, Ariffi also said that Pertamina planned to shut down the 230,000 bpd Cilacap refinery, in Central Java, in September for one month for a routine maintenance.
Separately, the East Kalimantan Kaltim Post daily quoted public relations chief of the local Pertamina office W. Welan as saying that the government had ordered the 260,000 bpd Balikpapan refinery unit to supply part of its gasoline production to the western part of Indonesia due to the Balongan shut down.
He said that the Balikpapan refinery unit could increase its capacity to between 270,000-280,000 bpd to help resolve the lack of supply from the Balongan unit. (*)