Pertamina to buy extra January petroleum products from spot market

Indonesia's state-owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina will need to buy an extra 500,000 barrels of petroleum products for January due to a problem at the company's Balongan refinery, the Dow Jones Newswires reported on Friday quoting Pertamina's Marketing and Commercial Director Ari Sumarno as saying.

Sumarno didn't specify the nature of the refinery problem, but said that the company didn't shut down the refinery.

Earlier this month, he said that Pertamina will import around 8.5 million bbl of petroleum products in January, 1.8 million to 2 million bbl of which will be bought from the spot market.(*)