GOVERNMENT price-fixing has largely shut them out for decades, but foreign oil companies at last see an opportunity to sell gasoline on a mass scale in Indonesia.

    Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s scrapping of gasoline subsidies has removed one of the biggest obstacles stopping motorists filling up at pumps owned by foreign firms.

    And with more than 1 million new cars and almost 8 million motorcycles sold yearly, Southeast Asia’s biggest economy is a potentially lucrative market forecast to become the world’s largest importer of gasoline by 2018.

    “Of course we are looking at expansion,” Emmanuel Dujeu, head of downstream operations at Frances’s Total in Indonesia, told Reuters.

    State-oil firm Pertamina has dominated sales of gasoline, also known as petrol, because subsidies meant it sold fuel cheaper than anyone else.

    But Widodo’s move to float prices in January changes this.

    “It’s going to open up a lot more opportunities for foreign players,” said Suresh Sivanandam at consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

    Soon after Indonesia liberalized its downstream market in 2001, Shell, Total and Malaysia’s Petronas opened filling stations.

    But because of Pertamina’s cheap prices, foreign firms’ sales were limited to rich drivers, prepared to shell out for fuel that was less likely to clog their engines, and to industry, prevented by law from using subsidized fuel.

    Foreign-run petrol stations had to partly rely on sales from shops on their forecourts to top up earnings.

    In 2012, after nearly a decade of disappointment, Petronas sold its filling stations.

    With improved prospects, Total sees a chance to grow.

    “We are looking at how we could do this,” Dujeu said.

    Asked about Shell’s plans, a spokeswoman said it regularly reviewed its fuels portfolio in countries where it operated.

    (SD-Agencies)