MOSCOW (MRC) -- Indonesian state-energy company PT Pertamina said on Wednesday that ensuring fuel supply was its “top priority” as workers plan a ten-day strike next week, just when fuel demand typically increases as people travel for year-end holidays, reported Reuters.
After the union failed to reach a deal with management over labour terms, workers at the country’s biggest fuel supplier are set to hold a national strike from Dec. 29 to Jan. 7.
“The management anticipate and mitigate any conditions to ensure that the company’s operations continue to run smoothly,” Pertamina said in a statement, adding it was open to further dialogue.
As it seeks to short up supplies, the company has issued a tender seeking up to 1.2 million barrels of high speed diesel (HSD) for January delivery.
It was looking for three cargoes for delivery between Jan. 7-12, Jan. 13-18, and Jan. 19-24, respectively with a maximum volume of 400,000 barrels each, the tender document showed.
The tender will remain open till Dec. 23 and has a validity until Dec. 24.
It is unclear how many of Pertamina’s workers are expected to strike or why negotiations failed, but the union said the strike could end earlier than expected if its demands are met.
As MRC informed previously, the fire, which broke out at one of Pertamina’s fuel storage tanks in the Cilacap refinery and petrochemical complex on 13 November 2021, did not affect operations at any other plants at the same complex. In fact, all other production lines were operating normally during the incident. The fire was completely extinguished after about 12 hours.
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 2,047,100 tonnes in the first ten months of 2021, up by 17% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,226,530 tonnes in January-October 2021, up by 26% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding stat-copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.
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