Indonesia's Pertamina may shut refineries to cut costs, increase imports

JAKARTA: Indonesian state-owned energy company Pertamina is considering closing some of its older refineries where the fuel produced is proving to be more than 10 percent more expensive than imports, a company director told reporters on Thursday.

"Based on our calculations, we profit from imports, but production from our refineries makes a loss because the cost of production is very high," Marketing Director Ahmad Bambang said.

"We are analysing this - how would we go about closing them, (and) the consequence from closing refineries will be we import more."

Bambang declined to comment on which refineries could be shut but said the firm would analyse each case comprehensively.