JAKARTA: Indonesia plans to change the source of some of its fuel imports from Singapore to the United States as part of negotiations over steep tariffs, its energy minister said on Friday.
The United States has imposed a 32% tariff on Indonesian goods, but like other countries, implementation has been paused until July to make room for negotiations.
Minister Bahlil Lahadalia said the change of some fuel imports away from Singapore would happen gradually. Indonesia could shift as much as 60% of its total fuel imports from Singapore to the United States in the early stages, he said.
“It is almost certain that we will take other fuel imports from other countries, not from that one (Singapore),“ he told reporters, adding the shift could happened in the next six months. Increasing fuel imports from the United States is part of a wider proposal that Indonesia has made to Washington to address the tariffs. The government has said that it wants to increase U.S. energy imports by about $10 billion, which also includes buying U.S. fuel, crude oil and liquefied petroleum gas
Bahlil has said that as part of the negotiations, Indonesia wants to import 10 times more U.S. crude than now. At present, about 4% of its crude imports are from the United States.
State energy firm Pertamina has said that it will be ready to execute the plan and might need to increase its fuel storage capacity in order to store U.S. fuels.
