Oilfields development
Pertamina Brings in ‘Terminator’ to Extinguish Refinery Fire
PT Pertamina, Indonesia’s state oil and gas company, said it will use a bigger water cannon to put out a fire that has been ablaze at its Cilacap, Central Java, refinery’s storage tank for three days.
Pertamina will bring in a “terminator cannon” and has prepared 97 metric tons of foam and water from the cooling system at the refinery to spray 3,500 gallons of foam a minute, the Jakarta-based company said in an e-mailed statement today.
The Indonesian government expects Pertamina to extinguish the fire at the third tank by tomorrow morning, Julian Aldrin Pasha, a spokesman for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, told reporters in Jakarta.
Pertamina shut its fuel oil complex-1 at the Cilacap refinery after the fire, which started at a storage tank for a gasoline component at 4:55 a.m. local time on April 2, spread to two other tanks.
The company has extinguished the blaze at two tanks. Before the shutdown, the refinery had a daily total capacity of 348,000 barrels of oil, Pertamina Coporate Secretary Hari Karyuliarto said April 2. It was the second incident at the refinery after a blast on January 2010 led to the shutdown of part of the plant.
Pertamina has adequate fuel inventories to supply West Java and Central Java despite the closure, it said in the statement. The company has supplied 7,300 kiloliters of kerosene, 13,000 kiloliters of low-octane gasoline and 28,000 kiloliters of diesel to five fuel depots on the most-populated island in Indonesia. It has also prepared 400,000 barrels of imported gasoline as back-up, Pertamina said.
