Saudi Aramco to start Cilacap refinery project soon: Minister
Monday, May 23 2016 - 02:51 AM WIB
State owned oil and gas firm PT Pertamina and Saudi Arabia?s state owned firm Saudi Aramco will soon start construction work to upgrade Pertamina?s Cilacap unit IV refinery in Central Java, with an estimated investment of US$5 billion.
This was said by Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Sudirman Said following a meeting between President Joko Widodo and visiting Saudi Arabia Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud on Sunday at the Bogor Palace, West Java.
?Construction process of the Cilacap refinery will start soon. Tomorrow morning (Monday) at Pertamina (office) there will be a signing of the basic engineering agreement,? Sudirman told reporters, adding that Aramco has also expressed commitment to develop two other oil refineries namely in Balongan (West Java) and Dumai (Riau).
Pertamina and Aramaco in November of last year signed a Heads of Agreement (HoA) for the Cilacap refinery project.
The upgrading program will make the Cilacap refinery the largest in the country with improved economic parameters. Its Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) capacity will be increased from 345,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 370,000 bpd, while its complexities will increase from three to nine with production result increasing from 73 percent to 96 percent.
This portal previously reported that if the Front End Engineering Design (FEED) is completed in 2017 and EPC starts in 2018, the upgrading project is expected to be completed and start up at the end of 2021.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak