OREANDA-NEWS. June 27, 2014. PT Pertamina (Persero), as a company owning the largest fleets in the country, is committed to be the driver of the country’s national maritime industry’s development.
 
Pertamina Shipping Senior Vice President Mulyono said as an archipelagic nation whose 70 percent of its area is covered by water, fleet of ships were vital in fuel and LPG distribution in Indonesia. He continued that fuel and LPG distribution could not be halted because of challenges like bad weather, high waves as well as ebbs and flows of sea and rivers.
 
“If one stream is stopped, it will influence distribution in other areas. For example, if there is disturbance in the shipping route from Balikpapan to Wayame, distribution of fuels and LPG in all areas in Papua and Maluku will be disturbed. With that condition, the strengthening of our fleet of ships is a must,” Mulyono said.
 
Since 1990 to 2014, he continued, Pertamina has constructed 46 new ships so that currently, Pertamina owns 61 of 201 units of ships operating in distributing crude oil, fuels and LPG to all over Indonesia. Seeing how big the fleet of ships operated by Pertamina, it is not an exaggeration to say Pertamina is the largest “shipping company” in Indonesia.
 
With that position, Pertamina has continued and will continue to play important role in developing the national maritime industry. Moreover, Mulyono said, Pertamina so fas had become the catalyst of improving the capability of the Indonesian maritime industry, including the manufacturing activities, maintenance and human resources development in the shipping sector.
 
As a proof, Pertamina has always been the first company ordering the largest ships constructed by local shipyards. One of the examples is where Pertamina constructed a ship with a total weight of 30,000 DWT at PT PAL. That was the first time PT PAL could build a ship with that capacity. Pertamina also constructed ships with total weight of 17,500 DWT at Dok Perkapalan Surabaya, Daya Radar Utama, Multi Ocean Shipyard and Anggrek Hitam. Those are also for the first time those companies built ships with that capacity.
 
“With technical guidance from Pertamina on the specification of the ships and the proof that the shipyards can build the ships well, we hope that other shipping companies can do the same ordering. In this context, Pertamina has clearly played important role in the development of the national shipping industry,” Mulyono explained.