October 16, 2025 | 10:00 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The digital price board—or pylon sign—at the Vivo gas station in Bintaro Sector 1, South Tangerang, Banten, displayed only one product on Wednesday afternoon, October 8, 2025: Diesel Primus Plus, a fuel for diesel engines. Other products, such as Revvo 90, Revvo 92, and Revvo 95, were no longer listed. A station attendant named Husein said the gasoline stock had run out. Several motorcyclists who stopped by were left disappointed. “A lot of people are looking for it,” Husein told Tempo.
The situation was similar at the Shell gas station on Jalan Ciputat Raya, South Jakarta, where only V-Power Diesel was available on Thursday afternoon, October 9. A lone attendant stood by the dispenser, explaining the fuel shortage to incoming customers. On its website, Shell announced that its gasoline products were currently unavailable across its entire network. The same problem occurred at BP-AKR outlets. These shortages at private gas stations have persisted since August.
The problem began with a massive shift of consumers away from Pertalite—a subsidized gasoline product with a research octane number (RON) of 90—to higher-octane alternatives after the government tightened the distribution of subsidized fuels. The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources decided that Pertalite purchases could only be made through the MyPertamina app using a specific QR code, allowing only registered customers to buy it.
Consumers who were not registered had no choice but to switch to unsubsidized, higher-octane gasoline such as Pertamax—produced by state-owned Pertamina—or equivalent products sold at private gas stations. According to the Energy Ministry, sales of unsubsidized fuel surged to 22.7 million kiloliters as of July 2025, compared to just 19 million kiloliters in all of 2024. Meanwhile, Pertalite’s daily sales dropped from 81,106 kiloliters last year to 76,970 kiloliters.
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