Jakarta, TAMBANG, – President of the Republic of Indonesia Prabowo Subianto inaugurated the Refinery Development Master Plan (RDMP) Project in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan. The development of the Balikpapan refinery is an important step to achieve energy self-sufficiency according to the Asta Cita program. Ultimately, it is hoped that Indonesia will no longer rely on imports of fuel oil (BBM) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for domestic needs.
President Prabowo in his speech expressed his pride in this achievement and expressed his thanks to all parties involved.
“I feel happy and very proud of what we have achieved today. I would like to thank all elements, all parties, all levels of employees who worked hard, so that we succeeded in achieving this (RDMP). This also includes the regional government, management, the people of Balikpapan and East Kalimantan. This is a very important achievement for the state and nation,” he said.
Prabowo emphasized that energy independence is a must for an independent country. According to him, it makes no sense for a country to want independence if it still depends on food and energy from abroad. “It makes no sense for a country to want to be independent if it depends on food and energy from outside the country. We must believe this. We must be able to produce our own food and energy needs,” stressed the President.
Prabowo also reminded the enormous national energy potential, such as coal, oil and gas, and geothermal energy which should be utilized to achieve this independence.
“With the energy sources we have, we can actually produce our own energy, we don’t need to import energy from outside. This is our target for the future in 5 or 6 years or even 7 years. The important thing is, we have to get there and of course with hard work we can make it happen faster,” he explained.
Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Bahlil Lahadalia conveyed the same spirit. He said that realizing energy independence and sovereignty is one of the nation’s big agendas as stated in the President’s Asta Cita.
“Today we inaugurated the RDMP Balikpapan Refinery which is part of the Asta Cita of the President of the Republic of Indonesia in realizing energy independence. With the operation of the Balikpapan RDMP, we can reduce dependence on imported fuel and LPG and can produce products with EURO V equivalent quality which are of course more environmentally friendly,” said Bahlil.
The Balikpapan RDMP project has an investment value of around USD 7.4 billion or equivalent to IDR 123 trillion. Through the construction of the RDMP, fuel production capacity increased from the previous 260 thousand barrels per day (KBPD) to 360 KBPD equivalent to Euro V. In addition, this project increased the Refinery Complexity Index from 3.7 to 8, and the percentage of product value increased to 91.8% from the previous 75.3%.
President Director of PT Pertamina (Persero) Simon Aloysius Mantiri explained that RDMP is an integrated project between upstream and downstream. This project began with the construction of a 78 kilometer long Senipah pipe to supply raw materials to the refinery, with the heart of the RDMP being an RFCC (Residual Fluid Catalytic Cracking) unit which processes the residue into higher value products.
“Increasing our production capacity from 260 thousand barrels per day to 360 thousand barrels per day with better quality, Euro 5 standards. The next one is also integrated with the Tanjung Batu fuel terminal with a volume of 125 thousand kiloliters which can serve distribution to eastern Indonesia as well as the construction of a tank in Lawe-Lawe which holds 2 million barrels of fuel as storage,” said Simon.
Simon emphasized that the inauguration of this integrated energy infrastructure project was a historical milestone and the result of the nation’s long work to increase energy independence.
Source: www.tambang.co.id
