Vice president inaugurate RFCC Cilacap

Vice President Jusuf Kalla inaugurated on Thursday the operation of the Residual Fluid Catalytic Cracker (RFCC) of the Cilacap refinery in Central Java owned by state owned oil and gas fir PT Pertamina (Persero).

The RFCC has the capacity of processing 62,000 bpd of Low Sulfur Waxy Residue (LSWR), which is produced by the refinery?s Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) II, into high-value product, namely HOMC. It also increase the refinery?s LPG production and add a new product, namely propylene, to the refinery, Pertamina said in a statement.

The US$846.89 million project was constructed by the consortium of Adhi-GS E&C.

The RFCC, which consists 21 units of equipment, came onstream on Sept. 30, 2015. At 100 percent operation, it can produce 37,000 bpd of HOMC, 1,066 tons per day (tpd) of LPG and 430 tpd of propylene.

Most of the HOMC product is further processed into Premium gasoline. The RFCC has increased the refinery?s Premium gasoline production capacity to 91,000 bpd from 61,000 bpd. It thus enables Pertamina to reduce its Premium gasoline imports.

?The government fully supports all efforts that are aimed to create national energy independence, including increasing the national oil fuel production to meet the continually-growing demand. Gradually, Indonesia must be able to reduce its oil fuel imports. Thanks to efforts that have been and will be carried out by Pertamina to increase the capacity of its refineries, we are optimistic that Indonesia will no longer need to import oil fuels in the future,? Jusuf said.

Editing by Johannes Simbolon