“The Iranian government is looking for opportunities to develop refineries in Indonesia, where demand for oil is growing faster than the ability to secure hydrocarbons,” Naryanto Wagimin, acting director general for oil and gas at Indonesia’s ministry of energy, was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Post newspaper.
On Thursday, representatives of Iran’s oil ministry met with Indonesia’s newly appointed Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said to discuss the issue, the paper added.
Wagimin, who accompanied Said during the meeting, said Tehran was seeking to invest in Indonesia, particularly in refineries, petrochemicals and liquefied natural gas (LNG).
“It’s still at the initial stage. We will need a further meeting to discuss the realization of their plan,” he said.
Naryanto added that Iran’s oil characteristics suited the country’s oil refinery in Cilacap, Central Java. “Thus, it plans to build a refinery that will be supplied by its crude oil,” he said.
In April, Hassan Khosrojerdi, head of Iran’s Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters Union said the Islamic Republic plans to construct six oil refineries in Indonesia.
He said that Iran would build a heavy oil refinery there with the daily production capacity of 150,000 barrels of oil in addition to five smaller refineries with daily production capacities of 30,000 to 50,000 barrels of gas condensates.
Khosrojerdi added that a joint Iran-Indonesia consortium would be in charge of constructing the refineries, noting that the installations have a total refining capacity of 300,000 barrels per day.