MOSCOW (MRC) -- Indonesia's Pertamina is expected to cut gasoline imports in September - reducing volumes for the third straight month - as slow vaccination rates continue to dampen demand despite gradual easing of pandemic-related restrictions, sources familiar with the company's import plans told S&P Global on Aug. 24.
The state-owned company was heard planning to import around 7 million barrels of gasoline in September, down from 7 million-8 million barrels it planned to import in August.
The decline in imports from Southeast Asia's largest buyer of gasoline comes even as Indonesia gradually eases movement restrictions.
The restrictions, which started late-July, were eased first on Aug. 16 in several regions in Java and Bali. Several other islands outside of Java and Bali relaxed curbs from Aug. 23 onwards.
As of Aug. 23, Indonesia had recorded 579,402 number of COVID-19 infections, down from 1.262 million cases reported in July, data from John Hopkins University showed.
"The road ahead for Indonesia gasoline is very uncertain. Vaccination rates are still moving slowly and with the high number of cases, unlocking too soon could risk another fresh wave," a Singapore-based source said.
Reflecting the uncertain demand, driving activity in Indonesia has continued to whipsaw between the range of 20% above to 10% below baseline levels since early August, according to mobility data from Apple.
In late-May to early-June, driving activity in Indonesia had hit a peak of 60% above baseline levels, the mobility data showed.
"Indonesian domestic refineries are not running at high run rates. Even then, demand is not strong enough to prompt Pertamina to re-stock," another source said.
We remind that, as MRC informed before, PT Pertamina shut its cracker in Indonesia for maintenance works from 18 March, 2020. This cracker with a production capacity of 578,000 tons remained off-stream until 18 April 2020.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
Pertamina is an Indonesian state-owned oil and natural gas corporation based in Jakarta. It was created in August 1968 by the merger of Pertamin (established 1961) and Permina (established 1957). Pertamina is the world's largest producer and exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
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