INDONESIA - The Fertilisers Business.

Indonesia now has the capacity to produce more than 3.80 million tons/year of urea and 3.36 million tons/year of ammonia. This compares with 3.25 million t/y of urea and 1.8 million t/y of ammonia in the first quarter of 2001.

The main production centres for fertilisers are Palembang, Cikampek and East Kalimantan, covering the nation's three main islands. The following are brief profiles of the main plants:

Palembang, in Southern Sumatra near the 143,000 b/d Musi refinery, was built in the early 1970s as the biggest fertilisers centre in South-East Asia. That was when Suharto announced a national objective of self-sufficiency in fertilisers production. The complex is run by state-controlled PT Pupuk Sriwidjaja (Pursi). Now it has the capacity to produce 1.76 million t/y of urea and 270,000 t/y of ammonia.

The main contractor for the complex was MW Kellogg of Houston, which in 1974 brought on stream the first two plants, one for urea with a capacity of 1,150 t/y and the other for ammonia with a capacity of 660 t/d. Two more plants, Pursi 3 & 4, were brought on stream by Kellogg in 1987, which boosted the capacity to 1.6 million t/y of urea and 242,000 t/y of ammonia. Subsequent expansions raised the capacity to 1.76 million t/y of urea and 270,000 t/y of ammonia.

Cikampek, in West Java, has a complex run by the state's PT Pupuk Kujang which went on stream in 1978, with one 576,000 t/y urea plant and a 336,000 t/y ammonia unit. They were built by Kellogg. Actual production usually exceed their capacity.

The company has had another urea plant, with a capacity of 300,000 t/y, built at the complex to serve the markets in Western and Central Java from late 2000. The contractor was the local PT Inti Karyza Persada Teknik.

East Kalimantan, Indonesia's part of Borneo island, has a complex near the Bontang LNG export centre (see Gas Market Trends) run by the state-owned PT Pupuk Kalimantan Timur (Kaltim).

The complex went on stream in 1983 with one urea unit having a capacity of 630,000 t/y and a 548,000 t/y ammonia plant. This complex also can produce over its capacity.

Kaltim Pasifik Amoniak, a joint venture near Bontang set up in June 1997 between Kaltim and each of Japan's Mitsui and Tomen Corp., has a $170m plant built at the complex with a capacity of 660,000 t/y of ammonia. The plant went on stream in 2001, compared to an earlier target for the spring of 2000. The output is sold locally, with some exported to Australia and nearby ASEAN markets.

The turkey contractor was Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, with Haldor Topsoe having provided the technology. Kaltim has provided the site and infrastructure in return for a stake in the venture.

PT Kaltim Parna Industri, a unit of Kaltim, has a 500,000 t/y ammonia plant built at the same complex which went on stream in 2002 - two years behind schedule. This is a joint venture with Mitsubishi Corp. holding 55% and Asahi Chemical holding 10%.

The $240m plant exports about 150,000 t/y to Japan and 300,000 t/y in other parts of Asia. Under a 20-year contract, the plant is using 55 MCF/d of methane gas supplied by Pertamina, the state-owned oil and gas company.

PT Pupuk Iskandar Muda, another state company, has a plant built at Lhokseumawe in Sumatra's North Aceh Province and on stream since early 2002, one year behind schedule. This has a capacity of 570,000 t/y of urea (scaled back from 625,000 t/y) and 400,000 t/y of ammonia (scaled back from 440,000 t/y).

With Toyo Engineering Corp. of Japan having done the basic design work, the turnkey contractor, in a $300m project, was a consortium of local companies: PT Rekayasa Industri, PT Krakatau Engineering and TEC. This was partly financed by the Japan Bank for International Co-operation (JBIC).