Government Wants To Transfer Fuel Imports From US, Pertamina President Director Asks For Legal Umbrellas To DPR

Pertamina President Director Simon Aloysius Mantiri (Photo: Antara)

PT Pertamina (Persero) has requested certainty of regulations from the government regarding the government's decision to divert some imports of fuel from the United States as part of the government's negotiations over US reciprocal rates by 32 percent to Indonesia.

Pertamina's President Director, Simon Aloysius Mantiri, said that currently Pertamina has had regular cooperation with US partners to supply oil and gas commodities, namely for crude oil around 4 percent of our total imports and LPG around 57 percent of total imports with transaction value of up to 3 billion US dollars per year.

"However, in following up on the plan to increase the portion of oil and gas imports from the United States, it certainly cannot be separated from the various technical and risk challenges that must be considered carefully, both in terms of logistics and distribution of infrastructure readiness to economic aspects for risk mitigation that can disrupt national energy resilience," Simon said in a hearing with Commission VI of the DPR RI, quoted on Friday, May 23.

Simon explained, there are several risks that Pertamina must face if later import activities for fuel and LPG are transferred to the US, including in terms of distance and a much longer delivery time from the United States, which is about 40 days compared to sources of supply from the Middle East or Asian countries.

"If there are problems with weather factors such as storms or fog, it will have a direct impact on national stock resilience," Simon continued.

Therefore, he said, Pertamina is currently conducting a comprehensive study covering technical, commercial, and operational risks to ensure that the scenario of increasing supply from the United States can be carried out effectively.

To overcome this problem, Simon also asked for support in the form of a legal umbrella, both through Presidential Regulations and Ministerial Regulations as the basis for implementing cooperation in energy supply for Pertamina from the US.

"The G2G cooperation commitment between the Indonesian government and the United States government will provide political and regulatory certainty and can then be lowered into business-to-business cooperation at technical and operational levels between companies," said Simon.