Presidential Candidate number two, Prabowo Subianto, in a national address on Monday, January 14, 2019, criticized Indonesia's current fuel reserves, stating they only last for 20 days.
According to Katadata's research, a Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) release on January 2, 2019, shows that Pertamina's reserves of several types of fuel as of January 1, 2019, could only last around 20 days. For example, Premium fuel reserves were sufficient for only 20 days, Pertalite for 22 days, and Solar for 23 days. Aviation fuel (Avtur) reserves were sufficient for 31 days.
This situation has actually existed for a long time, but it has still been sufficient to meet domestic fuel needs. The high cost of building refineries and fuel storage tanks has deterred oil companies from building processing and storage infrastructure domestically. One reason is that importing from abroad is more economical than investing in new storage tank construction.