Indonesia Pertamina Seeks to Buy Domestic Crude to Cut Dollar Needs, Government Official Says

By I Made Sentana and Deden Sudrajat

JAKARTA--Indonesia's Pertamina is seeking to buy around 200,000 barrels of crude oil a day from producers in the country, which is expected to reduce the state-owned oil company's dollar needs by $3.8 billion a year, a government official said Thursday.

I Gusti Nyoman Wiratmaja Puja, the Energy and Mineral Resource Ministry's oil and gas director general, said Pertamina was in talks with 14 crude producers, but he declined to name them.

"The 14 companies have agreed for such plan, but they still need approval from their headquarters (overseas)," Mr. Puja said.

Pertamina currently imports around 400,000 b/d of crude to be processed into fuel at its six refineries.

Meanwhile, producers including Chevron Corp. (CVX), Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), Total SA (TOT) and PetroChina Co. (PTR) export around 398,000 b/d in total.

Mr. Puja said although the crude prices Pertamina would pay domestically will follow international prices, the company would make payments in local currency at the prevailing dollar-rupiah exchange rate.

Bank Indonesia in July issued a regulation requiring all transactions within the country be settled in rupiah to reduce dollar demand after the local currency fell to its lowest levels since the 1998 Asian financial crisis.

Pertamina is the single largest dollar buyer in the Indonesian foreign-exchange market.

Write to I Made Sentana at [e-mail]

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 10, 2015 03:21 ET (07:21 GMT)

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