PERTAMINA TO CALL TENDER FOR 7 MILLION GAS CYLINDERS

Jakarta, July 13 (ANTARA) - State oil and gas company Pertamina plans to call a tender for the procurement of 7 million 3-kg gas cylinders this week, its spokesman said.

The company was in the middle of making preparations for the tender, Basuki Trikora Putra said here on Monday.

"We will call another tender this week," he said.

Besides gas cylinders, Pertamina would also call tenders for the supply of 7 million portable stoves, 5 million stoves and 5 million regulators including hose, he said.

Earlier, the chief of the company's domestic gas unit, Wahyudin Akbar said the firm would distribute the remaining 8 million gas cylinders in stocks to households before calling the tender.

Pertamina will need 33 million to 40 million gas cylinders this year to support the government's nationwide kerosene-to-gas conversion program started in December 2006.

So far, 22 million of the gas cylinders have been met. Pertamina plans to call two tenders respectively in July and October 2009 to meet the shortage of 11 million to 18 million gas cylinders.

The government has set the new price of 3-kg gas cylinder at Rp108,863 each, down from Rp127,081 previously.

The kerosene-to-gas conversion program is designed to phase out the use of kerosene among households in an attempt to cut government spending on fuel subsidies.

The program met with widespread resistance in the early days of launch, but was later hailed a success after more and more households began turning to gas for cooking rather than the environmentally unfriendly kerosene.***