REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The director general of natural oil and gas of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Gusti Nyoman Wiratmadja Puja, said the government will lower the prices of fuel oils next month.
"We hope the fuel oil prices will go down in January. If these are lowered, the country's economy will improve," Wiratmaja said after attending "Pertamina Refining Day 2015" function here on Tuesday.
He did not mention the extent to which fuel oil prices could be lowered, and merely said that after calculating the fall in global oil prices, there was a possibility of slashing oil prices at home.
"Specifics about the exact reduction in these prices will be announced by the Energy and Mineral Resources Minister. What is sure is that it will be based on calculations (keeping in view global prices) and existing parameters," noted the director general.
In the meantime, President Director of the state-owned oil and gas firm PT Pertamina Dwi Soetjipto said the latest prices will be decided after studying the world crude price this month.
"No doubt that the world oil prices are going down but then it is happening at a time when the US dollar is also strengthening against the rupiah. So, the oil prices at home could not be lowered (automatically)," Dwi said after the Pertamina Refining Day 2015 function.
He explained that although Pertamina did gain as a result of the fall in the world oil prices, yet it was no guarantee of Pertamina's profit also increasing.
"The government policy is a three-month policy, while the oil prices have been declining for only a month. So, if we calculate prices over a period of three months, the result would possibly show that these remained at par, resulting in neither losses nor profits," the Pertamina president director said.
As it was reported earlier, the world oil prices tumbled to a multi-year low on Tuesday (Wednesday morning in Indonesia) Dec 12 after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) session in Vienna recently failed to take any significant decision. Thus, the world oil market continued to be burdened.
The United States oil reference of light sweet or West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for January deliveries fell by 14 cents to end at US$37.51 per barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent North Sea crude for January dispatches was down 47 cent to stay at US$40.26 per barrel in the London trade.
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