Pertamina to triple LPG storage, tanker, filling station capacity

State owned oil and gas firm PT Pertamina is continuing to expand the capacities of its LPG storages, tankers and filling stations in response to the rising demand for the fuel.

The firm has targeted the capacities of the LPG facilities will be three times bigger in 2011 compared to the period before the start of the kerosene-LPG conversion program in 2007, Director of Marketing and Commerce Ahmad Faisal said in a statement on Friday.

The program was launched by the government to encourage households to use LPG instead of heavily-subsidized kerosene. The program was considered successful when it was first implemented in Jakarta and surrounding areas. Now, the government is expanding the program across the country.

The firm?s LPG storage capacity stood at 136,000 MT before the launch of the kerosene-LPG conversion program in 2007. The capacity will increase to 267,000 MT next year and 345,000 MT as of 2011, Ahmad said.

Prior to the launch of the conversion program, Pertamina had only six LPG pressurized tanker vessels, each with the capacity of 1,800 MT. It is now buying five LPG semiref vessels each with the capacity of 10,000 MT. The firm will continue expanding its LPG tanker fleet to a total of 6-8 semiref vessels (10,000 MT) and 10 LPG pressurized vessels in 2011.

An LPG semiref vessel is a carrier equipped with pressurizing facility. LPG that is loaded into a semiref vessel is a refrigerated one. Aboard the vessel, the gas will changed into a pressurized LPG, ready for consumption by the public.

In order to increase the capacity of its refrigerated LPG storage on the short term, the firm will also mobilize three VLGC (Very Large Gas Carriers) that will function as ?floating storage offloading? facilities. The firm will increase the number of such vessels to 5 or six in the future.

Meanwhile, the firm will also build pressurized LPG storage houses in various towns across the country, including one storage house in each Semarang and Gresik, each with the capacity of 10,000 MW, which will come on stream later this year. There are also LPG storage houses being built in Tanjung Sekong, Bali, Medan and Makassar, which are expected to come on stream in one or two years.

Pertamina is also massively expanding its LPG filling station network across the country in cooperation with the private sector. Before the start of the conversion program, the firm had only an LPG filling capacity of 5,000 MT/day. It is now expanding the filling capacity to 9,000 MT/day and plans to further increase it to 17,000 MT/day.

Now, the number of LPG filling stations has increased to 153 from 60 before the launch of the conversion program. A total of 389 new filling stations are now awaiting permits for operation.

The government has set the minimum stock of LPG kept by Pertamina at its storage house at 7.5 days of consumption for non-subsidized LPG and 11 days of consumption for subsidized, 3-kg container LPG. As of Aug. 27, 2009, Pertamina has 182,185 MT of LPG kept in storage houses, enough for 20.3 days of consumption. (*)