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Indonesia continues its impressive economic growth, but the Indonesian Rupiah experienced a sharp depreciation in 2019. The country soon encountered a high current account deficit, which finally led to national budget shortage on import- heavy refining & petrochemical industry development. Development of mega energy projects then delayed leaving refining capacity bottlenecked, while continuing to import expensive sweet crude and refined products would deteriorate the fiscal deficit. However, domestic petroleum and petrochemical demand could never be kept up with.

Regulators are making their efforts to tackle the challenge. To relieve imminent supply burden, they turn to a wide application of biodiesel. However, the regulators still need to continue improving regulation and policy incentives to attract more International investment and to draw a clear roadmap to stick with for the future.

The SEA countries deliberated budget and feedstock shortages in various ways. Aiming the supply side directly, some governments embraced alternative feedstocks but to which extent it could relief the financial burden was still uncertain. International operators would bring their experiences of refining heavy but cheap crudes to the sub-region. IMO 2020 Marine Regulations brought a hard line to the policy makers, which made it urgent to carry out a feasible plan to implement. As for the SEA operators, collaborating with International partners was more like a necessity for longer term growths. They bring not only funds and crude to the region, but also a probable paradigm shift to the industry with new thoughts and technologies.

The 6th ASEAN Refining & Petrochemical Forum will once again aim to explore strategies against issues and challenges mentioned above. You will be able to network with regulators and policy makers, refinery and petrochemical producers, International investors & operators, EPCs, technology licensors, and thought leaders.