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View all search resultsPrabowo launches $7.4b revamped Balikpapan refinery
The long-awaited Balikpapan refinery upgrade, beset by multiple delays since the project broke ground in 2018, came onstream on Monday in a ceremony led by the President, with the energy ministry hailing the integrated facility's potential to significantly reduce fuel imports.
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Emissions rise from an oil refinery in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, as viewed from a ferry at sea on July 9, 2024. (AFP/Yasuyoshi Chiba)
P
resident Prabowo Subianto officiated an event on Monday to inaugurate the onstream operation of the Pertamina refinery in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, which has completed a US$7.4 billion upgrade to become the country’s largest such facility.
The project has increased the facility's refining capacity from 260,000 to 360,000 barrels per day (bpd), surpassing the state-owned energy giant’s 348,000 bpd Cilacap refinery in Central Java.
Speaking to reporters during the launch event on Jan. 12, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia said the upgraded refinery had an increased capacity to produce up to 5.8 million kiloliters (kL) per year of RON 92, RON 95 and RON 98 gasoline, helping to reduce total gasoline imports to 19 million kL from around 24 million kL previously.
Increased production from the upgraded refinery as well as the national biodiesel policy would also decrease the need for diesel imports, Bahlil added.
“So we will no longer import diesel,” he said. “In 2027, inshallah, we will no longer import jet fuel and will only import crude oil.”
As a result, Bahlil said, private fuel retailers such as Shell, Vivo and BP would only be able to purchase domestically produced diesel from Pertamina.
The Balikpapan Refinery Development Master Plan (RDMP) project included installing a residual fluid catalytic cracking (RFCC) unit to increase gasoline output and to improve fuel quality from Euro II to Euro V standards.
