Petral fails to secure crude oil imports from Iran

Pertamina Energy Trading Limited (Petral), a subsidiary of the state owned oil and gas company Pertamina, has failed to secure crude oil imports from Iran to feed the Cilacap refinery plant in Central Java. As the consequence, the company has to import Iraq?s Basra oil which is not only lower in quality but also more expensive, Koran Tempo reported on Thursday.

Sources said in Jakarta on Wednesday that the failure of Petral to import the Iranian Light Crude would bring in financial loss to Pertamina because the state owned oil and gas company has to pay more for the crude which is lower in quality.

Petral has been assigned to import the Iranian Light Crude to feed the Cilacap refinery plant, which has a processing capacity of 120 barrels per day after Pertamina terminated the contract to import the Arabian Light Crude (ALC).

But due to its poor experience and lack of business relations, the company failed to find the Iranian crude. Petral then turned to the Basra crude oil, which is not only lower in quality but also more expensive.

Pertamina?s director for down stream operation, Muchsin Bahar confirmed that Petral had secured a contract to import 5.4 million barrels of crude oil from Iraq until April this year. "We have to import the Iraqi crude oil because we could not find crude oil from Iran," he said.(*)