Indonesia is the latest Asian country to import U.S. crude as shale production growth enabled the United States to ship out more competitively-priced light oil to a growing number of buyers in Asia and Europe.
The shipment of close to 600,000 barrels of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Midland crude was loaded onto the Aframax tanker China Dawn on April 20 at the Enterprise Houston terminal, data from Refinitiv Eikon showed.
The cargo is scheduled to arrive at Cilacap on June 7, the data showed.
"This is the first cargo from the U.S. We also import from Australia, Nigeria, (and) Saudi Arabia," Pertamina's spokeswoman Fajriyah Usman told Reuters.
Pertamina purchased the cargo in a tender as the offer for the U.S. oil was more competitive than offers for African crude grades, two other company officials said but declined to be named as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The purchase will also enable Pertamina to diversify its crude supplies so it doesn't have to rely solely on current sources, one of the officials said.
(Reporting by Florence Tan; editing by Christian Schmollinger, Shreejay Sinha and Uttaresh.V)
By Florence Tan and Wilda Asmarini
