Indonesia: Petral Shake-Up Needed

Petral, the trading arm of Indonesia's state energy company Pertamina, should undergo a management shake-up, forensic audit and be stripped of its right to handle oil imports, the country's new oil and gas governance team recommended on Tuesday.

The recommendations fall short of disbanding Hong Kong-based Petral or relocating it to bring more transparency to operations that supply Indonesia with one third of its daily oil needs.

The governance team was set up last month to help the new administration of President Joko Widodo rid the industry of graft and restore investor confidence.

Among its recommendations is a proposal to reorganize the whole process of crude oil and oil product procurement, currently managed by Petral, and transfer oversight to ISC Pertamina, said Faisal Basri, head of the governance team, at a news conference.

"We don't give a recommendation for disbanding Petral because we require the functioning of Petral for trading. We have to make Petral a world class national oil trading company," Basri said.

Reporting by Wilda Asmarini