A plan by state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina to ship in crude oil from Venezuela has run up against technical issues, as the product may not be suitable for Indonesian refineries.
The president director of Pertamina subsidiary PT Pertamina Hulu Energi, Chalid Said Salim, said a team tasked with sorting out the issue had been dispatched to Venezuela to discuss the technicalities and scout for potential sources of crude oil.
“A team has gone there to discuss bringing [Venezuelan] oil here,” Chalid explained on Wednesday in a hearing with House of Representatives Commission VII, which oversees energy and mineral resources, as reported by DetikFinance.
Kompas daily wrote on Wednesday that Pertamina Internasional EP, through its subsidiary Maurel & Prom, had an investment project with state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA.
Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Arifin Tasrif announced after a visit to Venezuela in February that Maurel & Prom had 12 billion barrels in reserve.
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Chalid explained that, to undertake the plan of shipping in crude from the country with the world’s largest oil reserves, his side had been in talks with the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, as well as with the Office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Ministry .
