Setdco?s Djody denies asking fee from Pertamina

Chairman of Setdco Petroleum, Setiawan Djody, has denied that he had asked Pertamina to pay a fee of about 10 U.S. cent for every barrel of crude oil imported by the state owned oil and gas company from Iran through his company, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Friday.

?Since the start (of negotiations), we have never asked Pertamina to pay fee,? he was quoted as saying by the daily.

According to Djody, the price offered to Pertamina was the official price based on the Dubai Price Index. He said that the crude oil offered by his company to Pertamina would be part of the oil which would be marketed by Setdco.

But he acknowledged that in the proposal letter sent to Pertamina, Setdco a premium fee of 10 U.S. cent not ?handling-fee? as reported by the local press.

Pertamina?s president Baihaki Hakim said in Jakarta on Thursday that the state oil and gas company has rejected an offer from PT Setdco, a company owned by businessman Setiawan Djody, to handle the company?s crude oil imports from Iran.

Baihaki said Setdco asked the state oil company to pay a brokerage fee of 10 U.S. cent for every barrel of crude oil it would import.

According to Baihaki, Pertamina had met with the Iranian oil minister last week and told him about his refusal to buy the crude oil through a broker. ?However, there was some one came to me after the meeting offering a service to handle the import with a fee of 10 US cent per barrel,? he said.

Baihaki suspected that the Iranian minister had not told his subordinates about Pertamina?s refusal to use a third party in the crude oil imports so that there were someone appearing to offer the brokerage service even after Pertamina expressed its rejection.

Pertamina planned to import crude oil from Iran to feed its refinery plant in Cilacap, which at present still relies on crude oil from Saudi Arabia to carry out its activities.

Baihaki said that importing crude oil from Iran would be cheaper than those from Saudi Arabia. (*)