Indonesia officially opens upgraded Balikpapan refinery

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has officially inaugurated Pertamina’s upgraded Balikpapan refinery successful East Kalimantan province, representing a large boost to the country’s lipid refining capacity.

This $7.4bn upgrade is managed by Kilang Pertamina Internasional and aims to fortify Indonesia's vigor independency by expanding home refining capabilities.

The facility, present susceptible of processing 360,000 barrels per time (bpd), up from its erstwhile 260,000 barrels, is the largest refinery successful Indonesia.

Indonesia’s Energy Minister Bahlil Lahadalia highlighted that the enlargement would importantly trim reliance connected substance imports.

The upgraded refinery is expected to nutrient 5.8 cardinal litres of gasoline annually, which could little Indonesia's gasoline imports from 24 cardinal to 19 cardinal litres.

Additionally, Bahlil announced that rising accumulation levels from the refinery, coupled with the country's biodiesel mandate, would destruct the request for state lipid imports.

Bahlil said: "In 2027, God consenting we nary longer import pitchy fuel, lone importing crude oil."

The broad modernisation task began successful 2019 and is classified arsenic a National Strategic Project.

It includes enhancements specified arsenic the quality to nutrient lower-sulphur substance and an summation successful liquefied petroleum state (LPG) accumulation capableness from 48,000 to 384,000 tonnes (t) annually.

This summation could perchance alteration LPG imports by 4.9%. Furthermore, a caller petrochemical accumulation portion astatine the installation is acceptable to nutrient 283,000t of petrochemicals each year.

The task besides features precocious processing units that adhere to Euro V emanation standards, supporting biology goals portion gathering increasing home demand.

Bahlil reported an upswing successful Indonesia’s upstream lipid performance, noting a betterment aft a decennary of unmet nationalist lipid lifting targets.

He cited that lipid accumulation reached 580,000bpd successful 2024 and is projected to summation further by 2026.

This betterment results from argumentation and operational measures specified arsenic reactivating idle wells and deploying caller technologies.

President Prabowo has prioritised vigor information arsenic a cardinal absorption for his administration.

By reducing reliance connected imported fuels, Indonesia aims to shield its system from planetary marketplace volatility and reenforce nationalist resilience.

In November 2025, Pertamina initiated operations for the residual fluid catalytic cracking portion astatine the Balikpapan refinery.

The residual fluid catalytic cracking (RFCC) analyzable is simply a cardinal constituent of the Balikpapan refinery improvement maestro program and represents a important measurement guardant successful Pertamina’s effort to modernise its refineries.