SBY to discuss oil payment options with Saudi Aramco

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will visit Saudi Arabia later this month to seek a revised payment schedule for crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia Oil Co., or Saudi Aramco, agency reported on Thursday.

Indonesia wants to extend the payment schedule for the oil imports from monthly to every three months, Pertamina Chairman Widya Purnama told reporters, without elaborating.

"The president will visit Saudi Arabia and Qatar later this month, but he will focus on his visit to Saudi Arabia," Purnama said.

Pertamina currently imports 120,000 barrels a day of crude from Aramco, Purnama said.

Purnama didn't specify when Yudhoyono would visit Saudi Arabia, but a government source told Dow Jones Newswires he would make the trip Sept. 13.

Yudhoyono's bid to ease Pertamina's payment schedule likely reflects an official effort to cushion financial pressure on the cash-strapped state firm.

Pertamina has suffered a cash crunch this past year, as domestic and foreign banks have become reluctant to grant the firm letters of credit due to import financing

repayment problems.

This affected Pertamina's imports of petroleum products from Saudi Aramco earlier this year, Indonesia's Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Purnomo Yusgiantoro, said in April, without elaborating.(*)