Government To Provide Mobile Gas Filling Stations

Jakarta (Antara Bali) - The government will involve the private sector to provide mobile gas filling service, an official said.

Deputy minister for energy and mineral resources Rudi Rubiandini said the plan will start off by placing mobile gas filling stations in a number of shopping centers in Jakarta.

Later the coverage area will be expanded to other locations, Rudi said here on Saturday.

The mobile filling stations which will have the form of small cargo cars will be placed in the parking areas of shopping centers, he said.

He said the government is calculating reasonable selling price of gas from gas producers to be paid by the mobile gas filling station operators.

"If the price from the upstream sector is cheap, the price to be paid by the consumers would also be cheap," he said.

The price would be reasonable while acceptable to the investors, he said.

The involvement of private companies in the business is a separate program from the assignment by the government for state oil and gas company PT Pertamina.

In line with the presidential regulation No 64 of 2012 on gas provision and distribution and determination of gas fuel price for land transport sector, the government has assigned Pertamina to provide and distribute compressed natural gas (CNG).

The government allocates Rp2.1 trillion in the state budget for development of the gas fuel infrastructure, Rudi said.(*/M038/T007)