Cumulatively Pertamina will not increase its fuel oil imports but only raise the volume of its pertamax imports at the expense of the volume of its premium gasoline imports, he said here on Tuesday.
"We will only replace imports of motor gasoline 88 (premium gasoline with octane rating of 88) with imports of motor gasoline 92," he said.
He said present demand for non-subsidized premium gasoline stood at 24 million kiloliter a year and for non-subsidized pertamax gasoline at around 800,000 kiloliters a year.
Pertamina was at present producing 12 million kiloliters of premium and 500,000 kiloliters of pertamax a year.
So, Pertamina needed to import 12 million kiloliter of premium and around 300,000 kiloliters of pertamax, Edi said.
He said if the restriction program was carried out, demand for pertamax was projected to rise to three to four million kiloliters and therefore Pertamina was planning to replace some of its premium imports with pertamax imports.
Pertamina had estimated that consumption of premium would reach 21.9 million kiloliter. With domestic production reaching only 12 million kiloliters, Pertamina would need to import 9.9 million kiloliters, he said.
Consumption of premium after the implementation of the restriction program was estimated to drop to 10.4 million kiloliters in Java and Bali and to 11.445 million kiloliters outside the two regions where the restriction would be implemented at a later date.
According to Pertamina`s estimates, without the planned restriction, premium gasoline consumption in 2012 could reach 28.07 million kiloliters.
In the 2012 national budget, the quota for subsidized gasoline had been set at 37.5 million kiloliters with a possible addition of another 2.5 million kiloliters under a revised budget.
The government plans to restrict the use of premium as of April 1, 2012 in Java and Bali with consumers in Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, Bekasi to be the first people to have to adjust to the measure.
The program has been mandated by Law Number 22 of 2011 on 2012 budget. Some quarters however have expressed the view that raising the price of premium would be more effective than restricting its use.
(T.K007/H-YH/HAJM)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2012
