Price Of Aviation Fuel Down 5.23 Percent

Jakarta (Antara Bali) - The price of aviation fuel at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta airport will decline by 5.23 percent in terms of the US dollar, starting October 1.

"The drop in the price of 'avtur' at Soekarno-Hatta airport, which will be effective as of October 1, 2015, will be the first step towards adjusting the price of avtur in Indonesia," state-owned oil company Pertamina's corporate communication vice president, Wianda Pusponegoro, said in a press statement received here on Wednesday.

She said basically, the price of avtur in the global market is currently increasing by around 1.31 percent, affecting the price at other locations.

However, Pertamina has undertaken certain efficiency boosting efforts to ensure that the price of avtur at Soekarno-Hatta, which caters to more than 40 percent of the national demand, could be brought down.

Wianda said two main steps that Pertamina took were exploiting bigger vessels and thus reducing shipping costs and optimizing inventory to make avtur stocks more resilient at Soekarno-Hatta, reducing inventory costs.

Transport minister Ignasius Jonan had earlier said he wished there were other competitors to provide avtur to airlines, considering that only one operator, PT Pertamina, supplied avtur in the country.

This is what made the domestic price of avtur less competitive and, in fact, 20 percent higher when compared with other ASEAN countries, he said.(WDY)