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Chemical and fuel distributor PT AKR Corporindo said on Monday that it plans to double its capital expenditure to $50 million next year, to expand its fuel-distribution business and other units.

“The capital expenditure is for business diversification, although we still have not determined the source of the financing,” said AKR corporate secretary Suresh Vembu.

AKR is building Indonesia’s largest privately owned fuel terminal in North Jakarta. The $100 million terminal will be operational in two or three months and will have a capacity of 250,000 kiloliters of fuel, Suresh said. An extra 200,000 kiloliters of capacity will be added either in late 2010 or early 2011, with an additional price tag of $40 million, he said.

AKR is aiming to distribute 1.5 million tons of fuel next year, up from the 1 million tons projected for this year. Fuel distribution accounted for about half of AKR’s Rp 9.4 trillion ($996 million) in revenue last year.

After receiving approval from upstream oil and gas regulator BPMigas, the company will start distributing petrol to PT Pertamina service stations in Sumatra and Kalimantan next year.

AKR is also growing its sorbitol manufacturing operation. Sorbitol is a sugar substitute.

Its sorbitol unit, PT Sorini Agro Asia Corporindo, controls about 50 percent of the domestic market for sorbitol and cassava starch. It is the world’s second-biggest producer of sorbitol.

Sorini has projected that its revenue would reach Rp 150 billion next year, partially due to its recent Rp 50 billion acquisition of PT Bumi Tapioka Jaya, a cassava-starch processing plant.

AKR is also expanding into coal mining following its recent purchase of a 87.6 percent stake in coal miner PT Anugerah Karya Raya for Rp 60 billion. When its coal mine, in East Kalimantan, is fully operational in 2011 it will supply coal to its terminal in China’s Pearl River Delta.

AKR is majority-owned by Soegiarto Adikoesoema, whose fortune of $300 million ranked him No. 35 on Forbes magazine’s list of the country’s richest people.

AKR booked net profit of Rp 110.4 billion in the first half of this year, down 37 percent from the same period last year.