Pertamina to do turn around at Balikpapan refinery next year

State oil and gas company PT Pertamina is planning to turn around its crude-oil processing unit at its Balikpapan refinery in February 2005, the Harian Ekonomi Neraca daily reported in its Saturday edition.

“As per our plan, we will perform turn around to Balikpapan refinery next year. May be around February or March. The turn around to crude distillation unit, which can process 60,000 barrels of oil a day into fuels, will take 20 days time,” Pertamina’s processing director SurosoAtmomartoyo said in Jakarta on Friday.

Suroso said despite the temporary shut down Pertamina did not have any plan to process its crude at an overseas facility.

Actually, the turn around was scheduled for January 2005 but it was postponed to February because of a technical fault at a secondary oil refining unit at its Cilacap refinery in Central Java earlier this month.

“It (Cilacap refining unit) has already been operating normally since four days,” Suroso said. (*)