RDMP Refinery Never Completed, Bahlil Asked For A Joint Team Of The Ministry Of Investment

JAKARTA - Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Bahlil Lahadalia asked the Ministry of Investment/Investment Coordinating Agency (BKPM) to form a joint team tasked with checking the development of the Balikpapan Refinery Development Master Plan (RDMP) project owned by PT Pertamina (Persero). This follows the construction of an unfinished refinery.

"If possible, form a team from the Ministry of Investment to check this. Do importers deliberately make damaged goods so that imports continue or what?" Bahlil said at the Investment National Coordination Meeting (Rakornas) in Jakarta, Wednesday, December 11.

Bahlil said that the difficulty of the construction of the RDMP Refinery caused Indonesia to continue to import oil from abroad. Based on his records, Bahlil said that Indonesia's oil consumption per day reaches 1.6 million barrels of oil per day (BOPD). Meanwhile, Indonesia's oil lifting which was recorded at only 600,000 BOPDs, so Indonesia still had to import 1 million BOPDs.

"If our trade balance position is disrupted, our foreign exchange is disrupted, our balance of payments is disrupted," Bahlil continued.

Moreover, he continued, 65 percent of Indonesia's oil lifting was still donated by state-owned oil and gas enterprises, Pertamina, while 25 percent came from ExxonMobil.

For this reason, Bahlil asked the Ministry of Investment together with the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources to conduct a direct check at the Balikpapan RDMP Refinery.

"The East Kalimantan RDMP is part of Pak Rosan's (Investment Minister) task and me for us to check. As soon as RDMP is not finished, imports continue to rise," said Bahlil.

Just so you know, the RDMP project aims to increase processing capacity to 360,000 barrels per day, another goal to be achieved is product quality improvement and refinery complexity. Previously, the capacity of the Balikpapan Refinery was only 260,000 barrels per day.