DOMESTIC NEED FOR LPG TO REACH 4.34 MILLION TONS

Jakarta, Dec 22 (ANTARA) - PT Pertamina predicts domestic need for qualified petroleum gas (LPG) in 2010 will reach 4.34 million tons.

The state-owned company's marketing deputy director, Hanung Budya, said here on Tuesday of the total, 3.08 million tons would be for subsidized 3-kg container consumers and 1.26 million tons for non-subsidized consumers.

"We are estimating the need for subsidized LPG will surpass three million tons next year," he said.

He said the LPG supply will come among others from the company's refinery plants totaling 818,545 tons, the company's upstream operations 52,920 tons, other contractors 969,724 tons, domestic private refinery plants 88,550 tons and imports through Petredec 1.5 million tons.

The rest, he said, will be acquired through additional imports or the refinery in Bontang.

Hanung said before the end of 2009 Pertamin had distributed 23.44 million conversion packages or 99 percent of the target of 23.78 million packages.

"The rest will be acquired in the last few days," he said.

He said since the implementation of the kerosene to gas conversion program in 2007 Pertamina had already distributed 42.49 million conversion packages withdrawing up to 5.2 million kiloliters of kerosene which was higher than the government's target of 4.2 million tons.

"The cut in subsidy reaches Rp22.4 trillion and after deducted by conversion cost of Rp10.1 trillion the net subsidy is recorded at Rp12.3 trillion," he said.

Hanung said on December 29, an LPG terminal with a capacity of 10,000 tons in Gresik, East Java, will start operating increasing supply reliability.

***2***