Pertamina plans to spend US$600m on new tankers

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

31 Aug 2010

Indonesia's state oil and gas firm Pertamina said it plans to spend US$600 million on new oil tankers in the next three years to upgrade its ageing fleet and rely less on charter tankers. Pertamina currently operates 190 tankers, including small and medium-sized tankers, most of which are leased.
'We plan an international tender to order three tankers of 80,000 deadweight tonnes capacity in September. These tankers will be used to carry crude oil,' said Suhartoko, vice-president of shipping at Pertamina.
'Other small capacity tankers will be ordered from a local shipyard,' he added.
Mr Suhartoko said Pertamina still plans to buy a new very large crude carrier (VLCC) tanker with capacity of 300,000 deadweight tonnes, but that it will not be ordered until 2013 so that the delivery coincides with the completion of Pertamina's new Balongan refinery expected in 2016.
Earlier this month, Pertamina signed a preliminary agreement with Kuwait Petroleum International to build a new refinery in Indonesia with capacity of 200,000 to 300,000 barrels per day (bpd).
The new refinery is expected to increase the capacity of the Balongan refinery by between 200,000 bpd and 300,000 bpd, from its current capacity of 125,000 bpd.
Kuwait is expected to guarantee some investment and crude oil supply for the new refinery, a Pertamina official has said.
Meanwhile, two Japanese firms and a Korean company have also expressed an interest to buy excess capacity liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Indonesia, an official at energy watchdog BP MIGAS said yesterday.
'There are several Japanese firms and South Korea's KOGAS that want to buy that LNG,' Budi Indianto, BP MIGAS deputy chief, told reporters.
Mr Indianto said that Japan's Osaka Gas Co and Kansai Electric Power Co, and South Korea's state-run Korea Gas Corp (KOGAS) wanted to buy the LNG, adding that the government has appointed Pertamina to market the excess capacity LNG.
'The companies are currently still importing LNG from Indonesia under long-term contracts. Now they want to buy extra from the excess capacity,' said a Pertamina official, who declined to be quoted by name.
BP MIGAS has said previously that Indonesia will have 68 excess cargoes of LNG in 2011 and plans to seek buyers in Asia.
Indonesia, the world's third biggest LNG exporter after Qatar and Malaysia, has an 8.4 million tonnes per year (tpy) contract due to expire by the end of 2010 and another 3.6 million tpy deal ending in 2011, both with a group of Japanese firms.
In February 2009, six Japanese firms reached an in-principle deal to extend the terms for their Indonesian LNG contracts from 2011 for 10 years, and agreed to buy a combined three million tpy of LNG from 2011 to 2015, and two million tpy from 2015 to 2020.
The Japanese companies involved in the deals are Osaka Gas Co, Chubu Electric Power Co, Kansai Electric Power Co, Kyushu Electric Power Co, Nippon Steel Corp and Toho Gas Co.

Source: Reuters