Pertamina to import 200,000 more barrels of kerosene in July

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - State oil company Pertamina is to import an additional 200,000 barrels of kerosene in July to anticipate a prolonged disruption at its oil refinery in Dumai, Riau, a spokesman said.

With the extra import, the total volume of kerosene imports in July would reach 900,000 barrels, Djaelani Soetomo, head of Pertamina`s fuel oils division, said here Friday.

"The extra import is just an anticipatory measure in case the Dumai refinery which has been out of order for the past two weeks cannot yet operate normally," he said.

Djaelani said the public need not worry about the possibility of a kerosene scarcity as the existing stock was still sufficient to last over the next 27 days.

The units producing kerosene and diesel oil at the Dumai refinery developed a malfunction two weeks ago, causing a drop of up to 27,500 barrels per day in the production of the two kinds of fuel oil, he said.

At present, Pertamina had seven oil refineries with a combined production capacity of 1.06 million barrels per day, he added.

The refineries are located in Pangkalan Brandan, North Sumatra (1.731 barrels per day), Dumai, Riau (166.652 bpd), Plaju, South Sumatra (102.925 bpd), Cilacap, Central Java (329.350 bpd), Balikpapan, East Kalimantan (244.698 bpd), Balongan, West Java (165.662 bpd) and Irian Jaya (8.760 bpd).