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tate-owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina will in May begin operating a gas tanker that it recently bought from South Korea to help distribute liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) across the archipelago.

The US$73 million tanker, officially named Pertamina Gas II, has a total capacity of 84,000 cubic meters of LPG.

'€œPertamina Gas II is the world'€™s largest gas carrier,'€ Pertamina business and marketing director Hanung Budya Yuktyanta said during Wednesday'€™s naming ceremony in Ulsan, South Korea.

At 226 meters in length, the very large gas carrier (VLGC) is slightly longer than its sister, Pertamina Gas I, which started operating in February.

Shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (HHI) president director OH Kim said after the ceremony that the ship was among 55 very large ships that his company had recently built.

Around 90-95 percent of the tanker'€™s components, including propellers, steel plates and engines, were made in South Korea.

'€œWe hope this second vessel will help Pertamina become the world'€™s first [in its business],'€ Kim said.

In addition, Hanung said Pertamina Gas II would help Pertamina distribute LPG in the country, which saw growing demand reach 6 million metric tons this year.

Pertamina'€™s data shows LPG consumption in Indonesia is growing, particularly with the government'€™s kerosene-to-LPG conversion program, introduced in 2007.

LPG consumption surged to 5.7 million metric tons last year from 1.2 million metric tons in 2007. Meanwhile, kerosene consumption declined to only 900,000 kiloliters last year from millions of kiloliters in 2005.

Hanung said that Pertamina Gas II would load LPG through several ports, including Tanjung Uban Port, Riau Islands; Belanak Port, North Sumatra; and Tanjung Jabung Port, Jambi.

'€œIt will also become a mother vessel, which will supply LPG to smaller vessels and will also be used to transport Pertamina'€™s imported LPG,'€ he said, adding that the country was projected to import 3.7 million tons of LPG or 60 percent of the country'€™s total demand for LPG this year.

Aside from Pertamina Gas II, Pertamina will spend Rp 167 million on another five vessels this year to support its oil and gas distribution, making the company have a total of 66 privately owned vessels by the end of
this year.

From the five vessels that will be bought by Pertamina, two will be the MT Pagerungan and the MT Pangkalan Brandan made by state-owned shipbuilder PT PAL.

Pertamina Gas II is the eighth privately owned-LPG carrier from a total of 28 gas carriers operated by the company.

In total, Pertamina operates 191 vessels, 61 of which are privately owned while the remainder are chartered vessels.

'€œThe larger number of vessels that we have will see us become more efficient in oil and gas distribution, which has become one of our prominent business lines,'€ Hanung said.