Anticipating Increased Consumption, Pertamina Boosts Refinery Production Capacity

PT Kilang Pertamina Internasional (KPI) is making efforts to increase refinery production capacity to meet Indonesia's oil and gas needs.

"Efforts to increase refinery capacity continue to be carried out by Pertamina. In the period 2019 to 2023, Pertamina has increased production capacity in existing refineries to reach 126.2 thousand barrels per day and increased petrochemical product production to 180 thousand tons per year," said KPI Corporate Secretary Hermansyah Y Nasroen quoted Thursday, April 4.

Hermansyah said several capacity building projects that had been carried out during the period 2019 to 2023 included the Cilacap blue sky project in August 2019 which increased production capacity from 23,000 barrels per day to 53 thousand barrels per day. This project also improves the quality of products that were previously Euro II to the equivalent of Euro IV.

In addition, there is the Balongan Phase 1 RDMP project in June 2022. In this project, the production capacity of the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU), which was previously 125 thousand barrels per day, was successfully increased to 150 thousand barrels per day.

Currently, KPI is also carrying out efforts to increase its production capacity through the Refinery Development Master Plan (RDMP) project in Balikpapan. The project is entering a new milestone with the Revamp Turn Around (TA) program being implemented.

"Currently KPI has a processing capacity of around 1 million barrels per day. The Revamp TA currently has the aim of integrating the existing refinery unit with a new refinery unit as a result of the RDMP project implementation."

The Balikpapan RDMP project is one of the largest investment projects currently being carried out by Pertamina. This project is also one of the projects with high complexity.

"The Balikpapan RDMP project is one of the projects with high complexity. It is said so because we built a refinery unit that only coexists and even intersects with existing refineries. We must ensure that the project runs while existing refineries still have to operate," explained Hermansyah.

Hermansyah also conveyed that the success of the Balikpapan RDMP project would later increase the production capacity of the Balikpapan refinery to 360 thousand barrels per day from the initial capacity of 260 thousand barrels of days.

"With an increase in the capacity of 100 thousand barrels per day, the Balikpapan Refinery will be the largest refinery owned by Pertamina," explained Hermansyah.

In addition to increasing oil processing capacity, there will be an additional production of petrochemical products of up to 225 thousand tons per year.

"KPI as part of Pertamina is the pillar of energy security with processed products at its refinery. Therefore, increasing production capacity is one of the company's strategies to continue to grow," added Hermansyah.

Vice President of Corporate Communication of PT Pertamina (Persero), Fadjar Djoko Santoso on a different occasion said that Pertamina continues to strive to increase refinery capacity with international standard product quality.

"The refinery project continues, so that the refinery capacity gradually increases and will further strengthen national energy security," said Fadjar.