Pertamina Modified Kilang, Nicke's President Director: We Need Capacity To 1.4 Million Barels Per Day

Illustration of Cilacap Oil Refinery. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - PT Pertamina (Persero) has implemented four refinery development master plan (RDMP) programs for Cilacap, Balongan, Dumai and Balikpapan refineries.

In addition, two grass root (New Grass Root Refinery/NGRR), namely the Bontang and Tuban refineries.

President Director of PT Pertamina Nicke Widyawati said this modification was continuously carried out to increase the production capacity of refineries with more environmentally friendly fuel.

Nicke added that until now RDMP and GR are still running because 40 percent of fuel needs are still imported.

"Therefore, we need to increase the existing refinery capacity from today 1 million barrels per day to 1.4 million barrels per day because we project that it is sufficient for national needs," said Nicke in an official statement, Thursday, September 1.

RDMP needs to be done in addition to increasing refinery production as well as increasing refinery flexibility in order to process not only low-sulfur crude.

"So the RDMP in addition to increasing capacity, the most important thing is to increase the flexibility of the refinery so that it can process not only expensive crude but also can process other crude-crudes with higher sulfur levels, which have more resources in the world, so that what we previously focused on is only a few countries now with the completion of the Blue Sky Project, then there is the Arcici Project and the green refinery at the Balikpapan RDMP," explained Nicke.

Furthermore, he said that the RDMP Balongan project had been completed, including upgrading flexibility from the Cilacap Refinery, which had also been carried out by the company.

The two refineries are now able to process high sulfur crude at a cheaper cost.

Not only that, the refinery is also more flexible in processing and producing products with high added value.

"For the Balongan refinery, we have two goals, firstly increasing the capacity from 125,000 barrels per day (BPH) to 150,000 BPH. Actually, starting in May this year, our Pertamax type of fuel production increased by 25,000 BPH or 9,125,000 additional barrels per year," explained Nicke.

With the completion of the Balongan refinery, Pertamina managed to reduce fuel imports by 9,125,000 barrels per year.

"That is Pertamina's contribution in improving Indonesia's trade balance deficit," he concluded.