Singapore (Platts)--13Dec2012/514 am EST/1014 GMT

Indonesian state-owned Pertamina's trading arm Petral is importing up to 10.7 million barrels of 88 RON gasoline in January, 2.2 million barrels more than initially projected, trade sources said Thursday.

It is also seeking an additional 400,000-600,000 barrels of 88 RON gasoline for December, traders said.

"If that requirement doesn't get covered it will probably roll into their January program," a trader said.

The company had earlier lined up 10.6 million-11 million barrels of 88 RON gasoline on a term basis for December.

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It also inked its Q1 term tender early this week, buying an unspecified volume of 88 RON at a premium of around 50 cents/barrel to Mean of Platts Singapore 92 RON gasoline assessments on an FOB basis.

Traders attributed the surge in January purchasing to the heavy buying of fuel at subsidized rates, largely due to holiday-driven consumption. In addition, the crude distillation unit at Pertamina's 348,000 b/d Cilacap refinery remains partially shut for turnaround until the end of December.

The Indonesian government sets quotas for the purchasing of fuel at subsidized rates. It last raised the 2012 quota in early December to 45.27 million kl (285 million barrels) from 44.04 million kl in September and 40 million kl earlier.

Pertamina has an obligation to distribute 27.7 million kl (174 million barrels) of gasoline and 13.6 million kl (86 million barrels) of gasoil in 2012. As of late November, it had distributed 25.2 million kl of gasoline and 12.9 million kl of gasoil.

Traders added that Petral had yet to award a tender to buy 1.2 million barrels of High Octane Motor-gasoline Component spec 92 RON gasoline for Q1 that closed November 29.

"The initial plan was to buy more volumes of HOMC 92 RON [to blend down] if they were not able to secure a discount [to MOPS 92 RON gasoline assessments] during their Q1 term negotiations, but it's now looking like a very big January import program for 88 RON," a trader said.

He expected further details of the tender to emerge once Petral confirmed its January allocations at the end of the week.

--Zameer Yusof, zameer_yusof@platts.com
--Edited by Wendy Wells, wendy_wells@platts.com

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