Jakarta, The Indonesia Post – The Indonesian government through the Minister of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) Erick Thohir promised to reduce the selling price of Pertamina’s fuel oil on the condition that the world’s crude oil prices decline.
“A lot of people talk, what will happen if world oil prices go down? Surely we will go down,” he said in an interview session with journalists after reviewing the national fuel supply through the Pertamina Integrated Enterprise Data and Command Center (PIEDCC) facility at Graha Pertamina, Jakarta, Wednesday. .
Erick revealed that the steps taken by the government by increasing the price of pertalite, biodiesel, and pertamax fuels are a way to reduce the waste of energy subsidies, so that the allocation of energy subsidies in the APBN can be used to fund national strategic projects, such as the construction of highways, airport construction, construction of dams for agricultural irrigation, and others.
During 2016 to 2022, the government built 128 national strategic projects with an investment value of IDR 716.4 trillion. Meanwhile, the energy allocation subsidy in this year’s APBN is worth IDR 502 trillion.
Erick said that the current world crude oil price is worth 95 US dollars per barrel, if it later drops to 75 US dollars per barrel, Pertamax will adjust to the market price, which means the Pertamax price could go down.
“But will diesel and pertalite be the market price? Yes, you can’t, (still) subsidies,” said Erick.
Based on the 2022 State Revenue and Expenditure Budget Draft (RAPBN) that was agreed upon by the DPR’s Budget Agency and the government on September 9, 2021, the assumed value of Indonesian crude oil price (ICP) this year was US$63 per barrel.
ICP prices that continue to soar due to global geopolitical conditions have increased the burden on the state budget because Indonesia is still importing around 700 thousand barrels of oil per day to meet domestic fuel needs.
Erick asked the public not to compare Indonesia’s fuel prices with other countries that sell fuel at low prices, because the majority of these countries still produce oil.
“Indonesia has (become) a fuel importing country since 2003, this is sometimes what we perceive we don’t realize because we used to always remember that we are an OPEC country,” said Erick.
“The number of people has increased from how many hundreds of millions (formerly) to 273 million; more cars, which means the use of fuel is increasing; not to mention the petrochemical industry needs crude oil that we produce for plastics, clothes, and others. With things like that, like it or not We must start to streamline imports, we must also reduce dependence on fuel,” he added. (mhn/bbs)
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