Pertamina to form subsidiary for refinery maintenance end-2001
Tuesday, November 28 2000 - 08:30 AM WIB
State oil and gas company Pertamina planned to establish a subsidiary to maintain its refineries around the end of next year after it decided to terminate refinery maintenance contracts with PT Elnusa Petro Teknik (EPT), the company's processing director Ariffi Nawawi said on Monday.
Ariffi said Pertamina would "protect" the subsidiary for two years before allowing it to compete independently.
He did not however specify the types of protection Pertamina would provide for the new subsidiary.
Pertamina recently announced the termination of refinery maintenance contracts with EPT, which is owned by El Nusa Tbk (43 percent), El Nusa Harapan (37 percent), Mines and Energy Foundation (10 percent), Pertamina's Joint Foundation (5 percent) and Pertamina's Employee Foundation (5 percent). El Nusa Tbk is 51.5 percent owned by Pertamina with the remaining 48.5 percent owned by PT Tridaya Esta, which is controlled by Soeharto's son Bambang Trihatmodjo.
The company, which received exclusive rights to maintain Pertamina's refineries during the administration of Soeharto, hired Pertamina's workers to carry out the maintenance work. The Pertamina workers were happy working with the company because they obtain extra income aside from those provided by Pertamina.
Ariffi said the about 2,800 Pertamina workers, who worked with EPT, had been returned to Pertamina.
According to Ariffi, EPT continued to maintain Pertamina's refineries during the transition period until the end of this year.
He said during the one-year period from the end of maintenance service of EPT until the establishment of Pertamina's new subsidiary, Pertamina would use its workers to do routine maintenance works at its refineries. But, Pertamina will offer non-routine maintenance jobs to other companies through open bidding. (Lia KS)