Pertamina to stop selling Premium gasoline

State-owned oil and gas company Pertamina plans to replace the widely used RON 88 Premium gasoline with Pertalite, which has a higher registered octane number of 90, reports said on Friday.

Pertamina Marketing Director Ahmad Bambang was quoted as saying that the company would start to gradually replace Premium with Pertalite in May in several major cities such as Jakarta, Surabaya and Semarang.

?Thus, [in those areas] Premium will only be available at gas stations frequented by public transportation and at gas stations located in sub-urban areas,? Ahmad said as quoted by The Jakarta Post. ?The new product will be more powerful and environmentally friendly,? he added.

He declined to reveal the price range and planned volume of the new product.

Premium was formerly a subsidized fuel product sold by Pertamina until earlier this year when the government overhauled energy sector subsidies.

Kontan quoted Widyawan Prawiraatmadja, a senior official at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, as saying that Pertamina can?t immediately stop selling the Premium gasoline in the major cities as it requires permit from the government. To his knowledge, the government has yet to provide the green light. (*)