Regarding The Plan To Plow East Kalimantan Shares To The Public, Deputy Minister Of SOEs: One Of The Efforts To Improve National Pupuk Production

Deputy Minister of SOEs I Pahala Nugraha Mansury. (Photo: Doc. Ministry of SOEs)

JAKARTA - Deputy Minister (Wamen) of BUMN Pahala N Mansury hopes that PT Pupuk Kalimantan Timur (Pupuk Kaltim) can increase its production capacity in line with the company's initial public offering (IPO) which will be held next year.

According to Pahala, with the increase in production capacity of Pupuk Kaltim, the availability of fertilizers for the creation of food security can also be realized.

"Pupuk Kaltim is the largest urea fertilizer company in ASEAN. Its production capacity reaches around 6.5 million tons and is one of the largest contributors to PT Pupuk Indonesia, which now has a production capacity of 21.1 million tons per year," Pahala said in a statement quoted by Antara, Thursday, December 8.

Pupuk Kaltim's IPO is indeed one of the government's efforts to increase national fertilizer production. The IPO proceeds are planned to be used by a company domiciled in Bontang, East Kalimantan, to finance the construction of a urea factory with a production capacity of 1.15 million tons and methanol of 1 million tons per year.

The factory, which will be located in the West Papua region, is estimated to require an investment fee of US $ 2 billion.

Apart from the IPO, continued Pahala, the financing of the Pupuk Kaltim factory in West Papua will also use other sources of funds. According to him, the debt to equity ratio (DER) or the debt to capital ratio of Pupuk Kaltim is still quite low.

"The IPO target for Pupuk Kaltim is around 10-20 percent. Meanwhile, DER Pupuk Kaltim will be maintained in the range of 30-50 percent," said Pahala.

Pahala also conveyed the opportunity for Pupuk Kaltim to optimize gas production from Blok Masela. In line with the plan to develop a fairly large natural gas block, the Ministry of SOEs has a plan to encourage the next expansion of Pupuk Kaltim to the Maluku region, where Blok Masela is located.

"With an IPO, Pupuk Kaltim has the opportunity to optimize domestic gas production which is expected to continue to increase in 2027-2030. Pupuk Kaltim can also optimize the need for fertilizers per hectare in Indonesia which is higher than Vietnam and Malaysia," said Pahala.

Previously, the President Director of Pupuk Kaltim Rahmad Pribadi explained that during the January-October 2022 period Pupuk Kaltim was able to produce 92 percent urea fertilizer from this year's target of 3.42 million tons. Meanwhile, NPK reached 102 percent of the target of 250 thousand tons and 101 percent of ammonia from the target of 2.79 million tons.

Pupuk Kaltim also confirmed that last October the production and distribution of fertilizers for the first planting season of 2023 (March-April 2023) was safe.

"As of November 26, 2022, as many as 108,917 tons of subsidized urea fertilizer stocks and 6,725 tons of special NPK formulas, as well as 158,702 tons of non-subsidized urea fertilizer and 38,073 non-subsidized NPK have been available in East Kalimantan Pupuk warehouses," said Rahmad.

The stock of fertilizer is currently in warehouses owned by Pupuk Kaltim in various subsidized fertilizer distribution areas. Among them are areas of East Kalimantan, North Kalimantan, North Sulawesi, Gorontalo, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, West Sulawesi to West Nusa Tenggara.