Plaju refinery may be turned into petrochemical plant: Ariffi

State oil and gas firm Pertamina is considering to develop aging Plaju refinery in South Sumatra into a petrochemical plant, company president director Ariffi Nawawi said Thursday.

?It is a historic facility, so we should preserve it. It could be turned into a chemical plant,? Ariffi said in a hearing with Commission IX of the House of Representatives in charge of financial and monetary affairs.

Another reason was the drop in crude supply to the Plaju refinery, Ariffi said.

Ariffi said the plant could be turned into a petrohemcial plant in five years.

Plaju refinery, built by Shell in 1930, was among the crude distilling plants founded in Indonesia during Dutch colonial times. Currently, it has capacity to process 130,000 barrels per day of crude oil.

It is currently one of the nine oil refineries in operation Indonesia. They belong to the government and are operated by Pertamina.

The other eight facilities are located in Pangkalan Berandan (N. Sumatra); Dumai and Sungai Pakning (C. Sumatra); Musi (S. Sumatra); Balikpapan (E. Kalimantan); Cepu and Cilacap (C. Java); Balongan (W. Java); and Kasim (Papua).

The country?s domestic demand for fuel presently amounts to 52.7 million kiloliters annually. Between 15 percent and 20 percent of the demand has been fulfilled from imports. (godang)