FROM the approximately 30-meter flare stack, fire still burns brightly. At the Balongan refinery in Indramayu, West Java, PT Pertamina processes its crude oil. The blazing flames from the emitted gas looked like they wanted to lick the sky on the north coast that Wednesday afternoon last week.

Starting last October, Pertamina should have processed this gas into propylene, a raw material in the petrochemical industry. However, until the end of l