Pertamina Retail to operate 200 fuel stations in five years

PT Pertamina Retail, the subsidiary of state owned oil and gas company Pertamina in charge in fuel retail market, plans to operate at least 200 new fuel stations in the country's major cities within the next five years, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Saturday.

Ari H. Soemarno, Pertamina's marketing director, said in Surabaya on Friday that the opening of more fuel stations would be part of the company's program to anticipate the free competition in the country's fuel retail market.

He said that the fuel stations which would be named SPBU COCO would be owned and operated by PT Pertamina Retail, which was recently established to handle Pertamina's fuel retail operations.

At present, most of the fuel stations in the country are operated by private companies in cooperation with Pertamina.

Ari said that Pertamina has so far built 24 fuel stations as part of the program, 12 of which had been transferred to the new subsidiary. "The transfer of the other 12 fuel stations to the subsidiary is under preparation," he said after the official opening of a SPBU COCO in Jl Dr Sutomo, Surbaya .

The new fuel station is the second in Surabaya after the opening of a similar station on Jl Raya Jemursari. Pertamina has spent about Rp 3.5 billion (not including the cost of land) in the new station which occupies an area of about 2,326 sq meters. (*)