Pertamina to announce Cilacap EPC contractor in October

Indonesia’s state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina will select the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for its Cilacap refinery expansion in October this year, a senior official said Thursday. “The EPC announcement will be made in October this year,” Pertamina’s processing director, Rukmi Hadihartini, said. The company had delayed the selection of the EPC contractor for its Cilacap refinery expansion due to the global economic slowdown. Pertamina and Japan’s Mitsui had earlier signed an agreement to set up a joint venture to build a $1.5 billion residue fluid catalytic cracking unit at Cilacap. Meanwhile, several companies, including Japanese Toyo Engineering Corp., JGC Corp., South Korean GS E&C and US’ Flour Corp., have passed the prequalification tender for the EPC contract. The front-end engineering design for the project will be handled by Toyo Engineering, a Pertamina official has said earlier. The 348,000 b/d Cilacap refinery, which was designed to produce mostly fuel oil to supply power plants in the country, is being modified to produce more valuable products, such as gasoline and gasoil. Indonesia currently has seven oil refineries, all owned and operated by Pertamina, with a total capacity of 1.05 million b/d. (June 25, 2009)