Jakarta: Pertamina to Buy 15 Tankers for Fuel Distributing

State oil and gas company Pertamina plans to buy 15 tanker ships in the next two years to help it distribute refined fuel and liquefied natural gas across Indonesia’s more than 17,000 islands, a company official said on Friday.

Mochamad Harun, a spokesman for Pertamina, said that the company would buy the tankers at a total estimated price of $370 million between now and 2014.

Part of Pertamina’s responsibilities is distributing fuel and gas in the country.

Harun said that 12 tankers are expected to be delivered to the company this year, two in 2013 and one in 2014. All of these purchases are part of a plan to buy 26 tankers through 2015.

This is part of company’s long-term investment plan to add to our fleet,’’ Harun said, without disclosing where the company would buy the tankers.

He said that the company was still discussing details of the other 11 tankers that are supposed to be delivered by 2015.

With so many islands spread across thousands of kilometers — from Sumatra in the west to Papua in the east and Sulawesi in the north — the bulk of distribution in Indonesia takes place over sea. Pertamina said that 82 percent of fuel and gas is distributed that way.

Pertamina currently uses 173 ships to distribute fuel across the nation. The state company owns 51 ships and leases the remainder from leasing companies.

Of the 173 vessels, 153 are used to ferry refined fuel and 20 to ship liquefied natural gas.

Separately, Pertamina said that it was optimistic that its net income would reach Rp 21 trillion ($2.4 billion) for 2011, which would be considerably higher than the company’s original target of Rp 17.7 trillion.

The Jakarta-based company posted a net income of Rp 19.45 trillion in the January-September period last year. Even though it isn’t a publicly traded company, it is scheduled to report its full-year financial statement by the end of February.

Pertamina said last year that it expected to spend up to Rp 408.6 trillion from 2011 to 2014 to boost its business, in part to contribute to the country’s target of producing 1 million barrels of oil per day.

[mappress]
Shipbuilding Tribune Staff, January 23, 2012;