Jakarta (ANTARA News) - State oil and gas company PT Pertamina said it will cut imports of Premium gasoline by 30 percent by phases starting November.

The impart cut will be carried out to follow the operation of the oil refinery of Trans Pacific Petroleum Indonesia (TPPI) in Tuban and the Residual Fluid Catalytic Cracking (RFCC) plant in Cilacap.

"From the two production lines Pertamina could have additional production of 91,000 barrels of Premium gasoline per day -- 61,000 barrels from TPPI Tuban and 30,000 barrel from RFCC of Cilacap per day," Vice President for Corporate Communication of Pertamina, Wianda Pusponegoro said at a meeting here on Thursday with the Energy and Mining Editor Society (E2S) .

Wianda said by 30 September 2015, RFCC of Cilacap began its first production of gasoline. With the operation of the RFCC unit in Cilacap imports of Premium gasoline could be cut by 30,000 barrels per day or around 10 percent of the total import.

She said soon operation of the TPPI refinery in Tuban would be officially launched to follow Pertaminas takeover of the operation of TPPI on 1 October 2015.

The refinery would produce 61,000 barrels of Premium gasoline per day that would allow a 20 percent cut in imports.

With the operation of the two refineries, Pertamina could reduce imports by 91,000 barrels of Premium gasoline per day or around 30 percent of the countrys total imports of the fuel.

The countrys consumption of Premium gasoline at present is around 29.5 million kiloliters per day and 17.1 million kiloliters or 9 million barrels of which are imported.

"The operation of the two refineries is a breakthrough by Pertamina to cut imports of Premium gasoline," Wianda said.

She said with the cut in imports, Pertamina would save US$1.99 billion a year in imports of Premium gasoline on assumption gasoline is US$60 per barrels .(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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