Nicke also made assurances that the Balikpapan refinery would not stop operating even during its development to ensure a secure domestic supply. “This refinery cannot stop operating,” he said, “because if we stop, then we have to import.”

Furthermore, Pertamina would continue repair work on the refinery while increasing the company’s upstream production capacity.

The Balikpapan refinery project alone is projected to increase Pertamina’s processing capacity from 260,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 360,000 bpd. In addition, the project aims to increase gasoline production by installing a new residual fluid catalytic cracking (RFCC) unit, a RFCC complex with a 90,000 barrels per day (kbpd) capacity and improving product quality from the Euro II to Euro V emission standard.

Moreover, Pertamina has been revamping its older equipment, namely crude distillation unit (CDU) IV, high vacuum unit (HVU) II and the A/B hydrocracker unit (HCU).

The oil and gas giant also announced that after completing the Balikpapan refinery development project, it would be able to produce as much as 122,000 bpd of gasoline, 156,000 bpd of gas oil and 41,000 bpd of avtur, increasing from the products’ current production capacities of, respectively, 37,000 bpd, 114,000 bpd and 29,000 bpd. It also plans to increase its annual production capacity of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from 48,000 tons to 384,000 tons, along with 225,000 tons of propylene.

The Balikpapan project’s RDMP also outlined 600 new jobs in operations, and expects to employ up to 19,468 workers at the peak of project work in August. At present, the refinery employs 10,160 workers, 42.7 percent of who hail from Balikpapan and 56.2 percent from regions outside Balikpapan, while a mere 1.1 percent are foreign workers.

The Balikpapan project also targets absorbing 30 to 35 percent of domestic components (TKDN).

The estimated time of project completion is 46.4 million hours, and the project is guaranteed to be completely safe. Pertamina was awarded with the 2021 Patra Nirbaya Karya Utama in recognition of its safety in the national oil and gas industry.

While the Balikpapan RFCC RU V initially targeted reaching 45 percent in overall progress by the end of 2021, it surpassed this target by achieving 47 percent across the four main aspects of engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning. Procurement recorded the greatest progress overall in achieving 25.32 percent.

"[This] achievement is higher than our target. Looking at the progress in the refinery development, which is on track, we are optimistic that the Balikpapan RDMP will be on stream according to its target in 2024," Nicke said during a project review on Saturday (8/01/2022).

In nearby Lawe-Lawe, East Kalimantan, meanwhile, Pertamina is expanding its regional portfolio by installing an offshore and onshore pipeline spanning 41 km in total length. It is also to deploy two giant tankers with a total capacity of 2 million barrels of crude oil as a supporting facility at Lawe-Lawe terminal, the receiving, storage and distribution point for crude oil to the Balikpapan refinery.

Last February saw the delivery of three boiler units to the Balikpapan refinery and 20-inch onshore pipes to Lawe-Lawe. March saw the delivery of an alkylation unit to the project site, an important component in producing alkylates for producing Euro V gasoline products. This followed in April with operational approval for flare relocation and then the delivery of five steam turbine generators in June.

The second half of 2021 commenced in July with the delivery of a C3 splitter and the mechanical completion of the RFCC feed tank, followed in August with the delivery of an RFCC disengager/stripper and regenerator, as well as the installation of the alkylation reactor.

September saw the initial commissioning of the RFCC feed tank as well as the installation of one steam turbine generator, while October saw the assembly of a 2,800-ton ringer crane and the installation of the propane/propylene splitter. Finally in December 2021, the RFCC regenerator was installed while the RFSS feed tank underwent a second commissioning to increase overall progress on the project to 46.92 percent.

Nicke said Pertamina's high commitment to reducing the country’s oil and gas deficit was demonstrated through its on-track progress in the Balikpapan project. He added that the infrastructure development project was the company’s largest to date, and aimed to upgrade the refinery so it could optimize the use of raw materials in producing high-quality products.

As a result, the Balikpapan project would ultimately increase Indonesia’s energy security as mandated for national strategic projects (PSNs), Nicke underlined.

Pertamina is confident that the project would be completed by October 2023 in terms of engineering, procurement and construction (EPC), the inside battery limit (ISBL) and the outside battery limit (OSBL) for the two areas of the refinery complex. RFCC production is set to commence in March 2024, with production at the gasoline block to start in November 2024.

Meanwhile, the estimated completion of the EPC phase in Lawe-Lawe, which started later than the Balikpapan project, is February 2023, with the EPC for tank modification to be completed by November 2023. Supporting facilities, including a new lab and administrative offices, have been operational since December 2021.

Pertamina is continuing to operate the Rumah BUMN (state-owned enterprise house) in Balikpapan, which was established in April 2021 to promote the development of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in East Kalimantan.

Nicke said Pertamina had increased its budget allocation for MSMEs to achieve their “Go Modern, Go Digital, Go Global” goals during the pandemic, including in education and training.

Rumah BUMN had recorded several achievements last year, such as the inclusion of an additional 831 MSMEs to its management. This was the single largest expansion since Rumah BUMN’s establishment in February 2017, said Walid Akbar, CEO of Rumah BUMN Balikpapan.

As many as 187 MSMEs with Rumah BUMN Balikpapan had also entered the export market, added Nicke, and the program now had a total of 2,932 MSMEs.

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