TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Analysis: Pertamina’s latest fire incident ignites blame game
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Minister of State-Owned Enterprises Erick Thohir was greeted by residents when he was about to take a tour at the Bung Karno Exile House, Bengkulu, Tuesday (24/1/2023). Erick Thohir together with the Governor of Bengkulu Rohidin Mersyah, Secretary General of Pena 98 Adian Napitupulu and General Chairperson of Pospera Mustar Bona Ventura will also restore history or return the location of Mrs. Fatmawati's house to its original location, to be precise at the current location of Bank BNI 46. Erick Thohir opened his speech with the success of the nation's struggle for independence, which until now the government continues to build a people's economy. (Courtesy of ET Team)
A
nother year, and it’s another blaze for PT Pertamina: on Feb. 3, a fire broke out at the state-owned energy holding company’s Plumpang depot in North Jakarta, killing 20 people living in a residential area in the depot’s vicinity. The incident has raised several questions, including how a residential area came to be developed so close to the fuel depot, who is to blame for the disaster, and whether the depot or nearby residents should be relocated to prevent the occurrence of similar incidents.
Pertamina’s safety standards are now again in the red, not only in terms of facilities risk management, but also in terms of public safety for the surrounding community. The Pertamina Plumpang Depot is located just 28 meters from the closest residential area, so the depot fire quickly spread to nearby homes, with dozens killed or injured before they could flee the blaze.
The cause of the fire at the depot is still under investigation. According to several local residents who witnessed the fire, it had just stopped raining when they heard thunder, followed by a blast and a pungent smell like gasoline, with flames bursting soon after. National Police chief Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo suggested that a technical problem might have occurred while filling a fuel tank around that time.
Fuel evaporates easily and the fumes can mix with air, so a lightning strike could have ignited the flammable mixture that formed and caused the blaze. In the last fire at Pertamina’s Balongan refinery in 2021, a lightning strike was reportedly the cause. (Read also: Pertamina refinery fire: Lightning strikes thrice in 2021).
In the aftermath of the fatal fire, several former Jakarta governors from Anies Baswedan to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo were blamed for failing to relocate residents near the depot to a safer area during their tenures. Meanwhile, Pertamina’s directors and commissioners, including president director Nicke Widyawati and president commissioner Basuki Tjahja Purnama, were blamed for failing to ensure the depot’s safety. In the end, however, Pertamina business support director Dedi Sunardi took the brunt of the blame and was removed from his position.
State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Minister Erick Thohir and Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan have opposing views about relocation possibilities. Luhut says the fuel depot has a strategic role in supplying fuel to Greater Jakarta, which accounts for 20 percent of Pertamina’s total fuel distribution, so rather than relocating the facility, the people living around the depot should be relocated.
Erick, on the other hand, has said the government will relocate the Pertamina depot from Plumpang in 2024 to land belonging to state-owned port operator PT Pelabuhan Indonesia (Pelindo). The related construction will take 2 to 2.5 years to complete, so the entire relocation project will need around 3.5 years.
