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Indonesia boosts refinement to end fuel imports
The government is on a campaign to lower the country’s oil and gas trade deficit, which has dampened the rising trade surplus recorded this year.
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A gas station worker in the West Papua city of Bintuni serves his customers in this file photo. (JP/Jerry Adiguna)
T
he government expects state-owned oil giant Pertamina to increase domestic oil production while the country reduces consumption in order that Indonesia can stop importing the commodity by 2026 in an effort to curb the oil and gas trade deficit.
To achieve that, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry expects Pertamina to complete five multi-billion dollar refinery projects between 2022 and 2026. The refineries will produce oil-based fuel and biofuel.
“By 2026, fuel demand and production will be equal,” the ministry’s freshly appointed oil and gas director general, Tutuka Ariadji, told lawmakers at a hearing in Jakarta on Nov. 16.
The government is on a campaign to lower Indonesia’s oil and gas trade deficit, which undermines the rising overall trade surplus recorded by the country so far this year.
Read also: Indonesia books first current account surplus since 2011
Indonesia’s oil and gas imports amounted to US$1.08 billion in October this year, down 8 percent from the previous month and a much steeper drop of 38.54 percent from October last year, when the country was still coronavirus-free, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data shows.
