South Korea’s Michang Oil Enters Indonesia

By Lam Lye Ching

Transformer oil supplier Michang Oil Ind. Co. of South Korea plans to enter the Indonesian market by forming a joint venture, PT Sari Michang Concord, and constructing a new plant.

Michang said its presence will support a project by Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s administration to develop a 35,000 megawatt power plant. A megawatt is one million watts.

Representatives contacted by Lube Report declined to comment. But company officials were quoted in local media reports about an ongoing feasibility study for the construction of a new plant in the Banten region, with a target to double the company’s monthly sales of Michang oil of 360 metric tons by next year. Banten is in the westernmost region of the main Java island.

Michang Oil claims to be one of the biggest transformer oil manufacturers in South Korea, with combined production capacity of 55,000 metric tons per year at its plants in Busan and Ulsan as of 2017, according to its website. That number is based on single-shift operations of eight hours per day for 20 days each month.

The company produces transformer oil, industrial oils, white oils, automotive lubricants and other products. At the end of 2018, Michang set up the joint venture, PT Sari Michang Concord, which is based in Jakarta and Surabaya. Michang has two partners in the joint venture, Concord International Oil Ltd., a lubricant distributor based in Hong Kong, and PT Sari Sarana Kimiatama group in Indonesia. Sari Sarana Kimiatama is an authorized distributor of Mobil lubricants for the Banten region.