Indonesias state-owned oil and natural gas corporation has indicated that it is focused on expanding its lubricants footprint in Japan.
Jakarta-based Pertamina, with revenues of more than $60 billion in 2011, announced the pitch at a recent gathering of senior lubricants officials in Tokyo earlier this month. During the gathering, Pertamina President Karen Agustiawan underscored the companys strategic goal of expanding to Japan and other overseas markets. Agustiawan noted that Pertamina has a vision to be world-class energy company which integrates upstream and downstream business, including lubricant business.
Japan is an important area for Pertaminas overseas expansion, and complements its drive to increase its market share in other regions such as Southeast Asia, China and the Arabian Peninsula. According to Pertamina, its drive to increase lubricant exports led to a 25 percent increase in overseas lubricants sales from fiscal years 2010 to 2011. Pertaminas total overseas lubricant sales in fiscal 2011 were 179.3 million liters. In contrast, domestic lubricant sales rose a relatively modest 8 percent to a total of 425.8 million liters in the same period.
Participants said the conference, hosted by Pertamina, was aimed at wooing decision-makers from large Japanese companies with stakes in the lubricant market, including original equipment manufacturers and oil companies.
The director of Toyotas Indonesia branch was in attendance as well as other officials from Japans lubricants community, including representatives from JX Nippon and Idemitsu Kosan.
Pertamina already has considerable exposure to the Japanese lubricant market through its exclusive distributor based in Tokyo, Inoa Shoji, KK. Through this channel, Pertamina manages the import and sale of its lubricants to Japan – mainly to branches of the NAFCO department store in southern Japan. Pertaminas lubricants – which are certified to satisfy JASO standards (as well as API and ACEA) – are also supplied to Japanese automotive companies such as Toyota and Komatsu.
While Pertamina officials noted that they are interested in establishing a production capacity in Japan, there is no imminent construction of a blending plant. Rissabela Putri Rinjani, from the Pertamina overseas marketing department, told Lube Report that Pertamina does not plan to have a blending plant in Japan yet, since we are still in start-up stage in Japan. Therefore we still put our focus to export our product from Indonesia.
Japan has been targeted by Pertamina in other areas such as liquefied natural gas. In 2009, Pertamina signed a landmark 15-year agreement with Japans Tohoku Electric Power Corp. to provide approximately 125,000 tons of LNG.