"The government has decided to dissolve PT Petral to improve the procedure of oil and gas exports and imports, Muhammad Kurtubi, a lawmaker of the Commission VII of the Parliament said here on Thursday.
Kurtubi said the government will dissolve Petral to be replaced with a new agent named Supply Chain (ISC), to improve the oil and gas trading system.
Kurtubi, known as an experts in oil industry , from the faction of the Nasdem political party, however, gave no details how the government could save the fund.
He only said that like Petral, ISC is a third party, a trader, but with ISC, the government could save state budget.
He said international oil and gas agreement on long term contracts should be made under government to government (g to g).
"But sales and purchase deals should be handled by state company like Pertamina," he added.
He said PT Pertamina as a state company could made direct import from the producers but the process would take too long time and the Law on Oil and Gas should first be revised.
Therefore, PT Pertamian needs to form a third party ISC as a trader to handle oil and gas transactions after the dissolution of Petral, he said.
Asked to comment on alleged oil and gas Mafia, Kurtubi said it is difficult to prove the allegation with hard facts.
"Long process of investigations would be needed to prove the Mafia allegation ," he said.
Mafias had been widely suspected of having penetrated Petral and controlled its trading activities and fixed the prices with suppliers.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
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