State-owned oil and gas firm PT Pertamina hopes it will see the groundbreaking of the development of three oil refinery plants in 2017, notably RDMP RU V Balikpapan, NGRR Tuban and RDMP RU IV Cilacap.

“We hope that the groundbreaking of the refinery plant development in Balikpapan would be done in quarter I, the Tuban in Quarter III and the Cilacap in quarter IV. Hopefully, the activities of all these would be seen in 2017,” Pertamina President Director Dwi Soetjipto told a press conference in Jakarta on Monday.

He said the Refinery Development Master Plan (RDMP) of refinery Balikpapan is now in the process of site preparation and pier development. Pertamina hopes that the construction of the two (RDMP and pier) could be finished in one year so that machinery and heavy equipment of the project could be transported through the pier.

In the meantime, its basic engineering design (BED) will be completed by the end of January 2017 and front-end engineering design (FEED) by the end of July 2017, so that the Balikpapan RDMP will be under construction between 2017 and 2019.

On the same occasion, Management and Petrochemical Megaproject Director, Rachmad Hardadi, stated that the groundbreaking of RDMP Balikpapan will be done by the end of February 2017.

“The president will inaugurate the groundbreaking by the end of February, particularly after its environmental impact analysis (Amdal) is completed on February 18, 2017,” Hardadi added.

He explained that regarding the site preparation, a total of 300 families residing in the Parikesit complex will be moved to a 24-story apartment.

As the tallest building in Balikpapan, the apartment has been 86 percent completed and is expected to become Balikpapans landmark.

The construction of the apartment is expected to be completed by March 31, 2017.

The other projects that will have a groundbreaking ceremony this year are the RDMP RU IV Cilacap and New Grass Root Refinery (NGRR) Tuban. The two are expected to be on stream by the end of 2021.

The RDMP RU IV Cilacap will increase the oil refinery capacity by 15 percent to 400 thousand barrels per day (bpd).

Yet, with the increasing Nelson Complexity Index, the RU IV Cilacap could add gasoline production by 80 thousand bpd, diesel by 80 thousand bpd and avtur (aircraft fuel) by 30 thousand bpd.

RDMP RU V Balikpapan increases the refinery capacity by 38.5 percent to 360 thousand bpd with respective additional production of 80 thousand barrels of gasoline per day, 70 thousand barrels of diesel per day and 30 thousand barrels of avtur per day. Meanwhile, the NGRR Tuban, which has a processing capacity of 300 thousand barrels per day, will produce 90 thousand barrels of gasoline per day, 100 thousand barrels of diesel per day and 30 thousand barrels of avtur per day.

source: antaranews.com