RFCC refinery phase I to be completed in June: Minister

Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Sudirman Said stated that construction of the phase I Residual Fluid Catalytic Cracking (RFCC) refinery project is scheduled to be completed in June 2015, Antara reported Monday.

Sudirman made the statement Sunday after visiting the RFCC refinery development project at Pertamina Refinery Unit IV complex, in Cilacap, Central Java.

He also visited two power plant projects in Cilacap including the 1x660MW Karangkandri 2 Steam Power (power plant) in Karangkandri, Kesugihan, and Unit 2 power plant construction project with a capacity of 1x660 MW Bunton Village, District Adipala, Cilacap.

The minister said that the RFCC is a modernization of the refinery to produce more value-added products.

In this case, crude oil is originally completed until the fuel oil product is processed into RON 92 gasoline locally known as"pertamax", "propylene", and some other high value added products.

Pertaminas Cilacap RU IV accounted for 30 percent of the supply of fuel products nationwide, Sudirman said.

The RFCC project which was inaugurated by the pesident Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on December 28, 2011 has an investment value of US$1.4 billion.

The project is expected to increase gasoline production by 1.9 million kiloliters per year. It increases the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) production as much as 352,000 tons per year, and will produce propylene products up to 142,000 tons per year.

Propylene production is expected to increase the supply for the needs of the domestic petrochemical plastics industry that has beendependent on imports.(*)