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Indonesia's Pertamina eyes Sept 2025 for conclusion of revamp at Balikpapan refinery

Indonesian state energy firm Pertamina is expected to complete a revamp of its biggest refinery at Balikpapan on the island of Borneo in September next year to be able to produce cleaner fuels, the company's refining subsidiary stated.

Pertamina earlier this year completed an upgrade of the Balikpapan center's processing capacity to 360,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 260,000 bpd previously, but it is still ending up other elements of the revamp that are running behind the initial schedule.

We have two staying milestones, completion of the RFCC and fuel block, Hermansyah Nasroen, spokesperson at Pertamina subsidiary PT Kilang Pertamina Internasional stated late on Tuesday.

The new residue fluid catalytic cracking (RFCC), with 90,000 bpd capacity, would assist Pertamina produce gas to fulfill Euro 5 requirements, less contaminating than its existing Euro 2 output.

Pertamina had previously anticipated the RFCC unit to start operation in 2024.

After the revamp, Pertamina said Balikpapan's Nelson Complexity Index, which measures its ability to deal with lower quality crude and produce more refined products, will increase to 8 from 4.2 now.

The majority of Pertamina's refineries are at present able to procedure just sweet crude feedstock, not more sour crude.

(source: Reuters)