Jakarta – Pertamina President Director Nicke Widyawati told the parliament Tuesday (29/3) that the company plans to purchase crude oil from Russia. Pertamina is currently preparing a business to business or B to B purchase process with India.
“We see that there is an opportunity to buy from Russia at a better price,” Widyawati confirmed her earlier statement to tanahair.net. PT Pertamina (Persero) plans to buy crude oil from Russia to meet domestic demand.
According to her, the price of crude oil from Russia is cheap because the country has received many trade sanctions from western countries. However, Pertamina will first coordinate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Bank Indonesia. This is to ensure that the purchasing process will not cause political problems as long as the companies that cooperate with Pertamina are not subject to sanctions.
Furthermore, she explained, the Balongan refinery became more flexible in using any type of crude oil after repairs. Meanwhile, prior to repairs, it was admitted that the refinery had not been able to accept all types of low-sulfur and expensive crude oil. So it is hoped that after repairing it will be more receptive to all types of oil.
“Wait until the refinery revamping in Balongan is complete … (we can use Russian oil) because this refinery can process all types of crude. Today, frankly, we can only process crude with low sulfur and this is expensive,” she explained.
World oil prices have soared for some time as a result of the war between Russia and Ukraine. The rally in commodity prices came in line with the export disruptions Russia faced after a number of western sanctions were imposed in a row. (Hartatik)
