Pertamina Lubricants aims to make Rp2.2 trillion in profits

Pertamina Lubricants, a strategic business unit of PT Pertamina, the Indonesian state-owned oil and gas company, projects that it will make a Rp 2.2 trillion (US$220,880) profit by the end of 2013. Pertamina Lubricants’ Retail Manager of Marketing, Andria Nusa, asserted that the target can be achieved through domestic sales.
The targeted profit has been increased by 15.7% from the 2012 amount. Nusa stated that in the first quarter of 2013, Pertamina only managed to reach 98% of the targeted profit, yet he is confident that Pertamina could reach its goal by the end of the year.
“Our market share increased up to 58% this year,” he said.
Since 2011, Pertamina has gained sales in the domestic and international markets by 7% and 6%, respectively. Exports also increased from 20 to 24 countries, including Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan and Timor Leste.
The Pertamina Lubricants business unit is able to produce 600,000 kiloliters of lubricants annually; its target is to sell 650,000 kiloliters of lubricants in 2013.
Having long ignored Southeast Asia, PT Pertamina is now looking at neighboring countries as a potential market for its lubricant products.
Pertamina Lubricant spokesman Abdul Hafid Rasjid said that Pertamina plans to enter the Philippine market this year, as well as start penetrating the industrial segment in Australia.
“We plan to sell automotive lubes in the Philippines and lubes for the industrial sector in Australia. We’re reviewing the potential of the Philippines. We hope that Australia can be accessed easier as we’ve already sold automotive lubes in Australian market,” he said.
Vice President of Pertamina Lubricants Supriyanto Dwi Hutomo said he was upbeat about the plan to export lubricants to more countries and confident in the quality of the product.
“Our product has been accepted in many developed countries such as Australia, Japan and Switzerland. It shows that our product is of excellent quality as they impose high quality standards before accepting lubricant products,” he said.
Meanwhile Uday Jayaraman Kumar, director of PT Lamindo Inter Multikon (LIM), a subsidiary of India-based Adani Group, said that Pertamina had provided his company with quality lubricants at competitive prices since LIM began operations in Indonesia.
In tapping the global market, Pertamina is collaborating with local partners in the destination countries. Earlier in 2012, the company teamed up with Australia-based Harvest Time to enter the Western Australian market for automotive lubricants. It has been selling its lubricants in Australia since 2009.
In addition to expanding its business to many more countries, Abdul said that Pertamina planned to supply more lubricants for various industrial sectors.
“The industrial sector contributed 55% of our total sales last year in which coal mining has been the backbone. We want to increase the contribution from other industrial sectors, such as manufacturing, plantations and marine, as coal mining has a gloomy look right now,” he said.
Pertamina sold 625,000 kiloliters of lubricants last year, of which around 122,549 kiloliters was exported while the remainder was for the domestic market.
(May 7, 2013)