Minister Of Finance Purbaya Urges Pertamina To Build A New Oil Refinery To Reduce Imports
Minister of Finance Purbaya Yudhi Sadive urged Commission XI of the Indonesian House of Representatives to also pressure PT Pertamina (Persero) to immediately realize the construction of a new oil refinery.
According to him, this is considered important to reduce Indonesia's dependence on imports of fuel oil (BBM), which has been burdening state finances through energy subsidies.
Purbaya highlighted that energy subsidies continue to increase every year due to the high portion of fuel imports, especially diesel and diesel types.
"BBM is diesel, our diesel imports are up to tens of billions of dollars per year. How many years have we experienced this? It's been decades," he said in a working meeting with Commission XI of the DPR, Tuesday, September 30.
In addition, he mentioned Pertamina's promise in 2018 which stated that it would build seven oil refineries within five years, but until now, none of these plans have been realized.
"Since then until now, I have never built a new refinery. So later, if you meet Sanantara again, ask Pertamina to build a new refinery. I once, when I was in Maritime, I once pressed them in 2018 to build a refinery," he said.
He also asked members of the DPR to participate in supervising Pertamina so that the promise does not become a discourse alone and he is ready to take firm action if the commitment is not carried out.
"They promised they would build seven new refineries within five years. Until now, there is none. So please control them too. From me control, you also control. Because we have a big loss. Because where do we import from? From Singapore. Oil, oil products, oil products," he said.
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According to Purbaya, the construction of oil refineries is very important to strengthen national energy independence and reduce dependence on imports from other countries.
"So basically if that's the case now, I'm not just a payer. I'll go in. I'll see if they run or not. What are the proposed projects. If we don't cut the money too, sir. I'm the supervisor, I'll just change the president director. It means reciprocity. How do we produce, also repair production tools, including providing new production tools that we have failed to build. So the refinery, we can't make it, or we can't make the project, only Pertamina is males-melesan," he explained.
On the other hand, he also revealed that until the end of August 2025 the realization of subsidies and compensation had reached Rp218 trillion or around 43.7 percent of the total ceiling in 2025 which amounted to Rp498.8 trillion consisting of
As for this figure, energy subsidies contributed Rp176.5 trillion, or 44.8 percent of the total energy sector ceiling of Rp394.3 trillion.