Indonesia's state-owned oil and gas firm Pertamina will import some 1.5 million tons of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in 2009, according to a local media Saturday.

Pertamina was also in talks with the Australian unit of BP and a Thai company to help meet Indonesia's LPG requirements, which are expected to amount to 3.9 million tons a year by 2010, English daily The Jakarta Post said.

The import will support the government's campaign to gradually replace highly subsidized kerosene with natural gas.

Pertamina marketing and trading director Ahmad Faisal said the contract for the LPG imports would soon be signed with Japan-based Ithocu Group, which has been appointed agent for the LPG purchases.

According to government's estimate, the kerosene-to-LPG conversion program will save up to 21 trillion rupiah (about 2.3 billion U.S. dollars) annually. One kilogram of LPG is more or less equal in energy content to three liters of kerosene.

Source: Xinhua