Fire at Pertamina Refinery

Pertamina confirmed on Monday that an incident occurred at the Pertamina Balongan refinery which caused a fire that started at around midnight.

In a statement posted on its website at 7.30am local time, the company noted that the Pertamina Balongan refinery HSSE team and the Indramayu District Fire Service were focusing on extinguishing fires in the refinery tank area, which is located in Balongan Village, Indramayu Regency, Java.

The company said in the statement that a normal shutdown was being carried out to control the flow of oil and prevent the expansion of fires. Pertamina noted in the release that fuel supplies to the community were not disrupted and were still running normally.

In a separate statement posted at 1.26pm local time, Pertamina said its emergency team had managed to isolate and cool down the area around the flashpoint. In a statement published at 7.58pm local time, the president director of Pertamina, Nicke Widyawati, said that the fire had started to get smaller.

“We will make extra efforts to extinguish the fire,” Widyawati said.

“When the fire is extinguished, we can start up to operate the refinery. Of course, we have to make sure everything is safe,” the Pertamina head added.

Four out of 72 tanks in the refinery area were said to be affected by the incident, holding around seven percent of the total storage capacity at the Balongan refinery.

Pertamina stated on Monday that it had asked local residents to remain calm and stay away from the location of the fire. Five residents were said to have suffered burns as a result of the incident. The residents were immediately taken to intensive care at Indramayu hospital, Pertamina revealed.

Pertamina is a state owned company which is 100 percent owned by the government of the Republic of Indonesia. The business, which is based in Jakarta, traces its roots back to the 1950s and aspires to be a leading energy global company with $100 billion in value, its website states.

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