Pertamina Discusses Possibility Of Lowering Pertamax Prices If World Oil Prices Weakened

JAKARTA - President Director of PT Pertamina Patra Niaga Subholding Commercial & Trading Pertamina, Alfian Nasution, revealed that it is possible that Pertamina will lower the price of RON 92 or Pertamax fuel oil if world oil prices continue to decline.

However, he revealed that the current selling price of Pertamax is still far below the economic price.

"If later the price of crude drops, maybe (Pertamax) will go down too, but as we know the price of Pertamax is still far below the economy," said Alfian in a virtual discussion, Monday, April 4.

Alfian added that the prevailing price will also follow the market mechanism and depend on the movement of world crude oil prices.

Meanwhile, regarding the news that the government will gradually increase the price of Pertalite later, Alfian said that this type of fuel is designated as a Special Assignment Type of Oil Fuel (JBKP), so the authority lies with the government.

"Of course this will be determined by the government because there is compensation or the value of subsidies in it," he added.

To note, world oil prices have decreased again today, after a week ago experienced a correction.

The price of Brent oil recorded a correction of 0.6 percent, bringing the price to 103.76 US dollars per barrel. Meanwhile, light sweet crude oil or WTI fell in price to 98.72 US dollars.

In the past week, Brent and WTI oil prices fell 11.89 percent and 13.71 percent, respectively. Looking back a month, oil prices fell 4.5 percent and 8.19 percent, respectively. Even so, both Brent and WTI have recorded gains of more than 30 percent this year.

Reported by Bloomberg, one of the causes of the fall in oil prices is the ongoing lockdown in China due to the outbreak of the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Another reason for the sharp decline in oil prices was the Biden government's decision to announce a massive release of crude oil from strategic reserves to combat energy prices caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.