Indonesia, Iran seek partners for oil refinery

JAKARTA, May 9 (Reuters) Indonesia's PT Elnusa, a subsidiary of state oil and gas firm Pertamina, is seeking partners to build a billion, 300,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery with an Iranian firm, Elnusa's chief said on Tuesday.

El Nusa and National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC), a subsidiary of Iranian state oil firm NIOC, will sign a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday to build a refinery in Indonesia.

The signing will coincide with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's first state visit to Jakarta.

''We are seeking partners for this project, possibly from Japan, China and others,'' Elnusa President Director Rudy Rajab told reporters.

He said that the equity for the refinery would go 20 percent to Elnusa, 30 percent to the Iranian firm and 50 percent to other partners.

Jeffrey Waterous, chairman of Global Union, a financial adviser to Elnusa, said it would also be canvassing companies in other countries in the Middle East, Asia and Europe that could potentially be strategic equity partners. He gave no further details.

He added 70 percent of the refinery's products would be exported and 30 percent would be supplied to the Indonesian market.

''The products will be marketed to China, Japan or to other ountries. That's why we are seeking partners for the project from those countries,'' Rajab said.

Rajab said the refinery, which will get crude oil from Iran, will also be looking for supplies from other sources.

He hoped that, if everything went to plan, production could begin in 2010.

Indonesia, the only OPEC member in the Asia Pacific, has nine oil refineries scattered across the archipelago with total combined capacity of around 1 million bpd. However, 30 percent of the oil products it consumes are imported.

REUTERS MP PM1647