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Blue Bird has been joined by another taxi company as well as an auto distributor in complaining about broken fuel pumps in their cars causing breakdowns, while state oil company PT Pertamina continued to stand behind its Premium gasoline, saying it was not the problem.

Express Group president director Daniel Podiman said on Sunday that about 40 of the company’s taxis were suffering broken fuel pumps each day. All of the affected cars were Toyota Limos, the same model used by the Blue Bird Group.

“This has been happening for the last few weeks. However, we can’t conclude whether the problem is caused by poor-quality Premium fuel supplied by Pertamina or by Toyota’s fuel pumps,” Daniel said.

Also speaking on Sunday, PT Hyundai Motor Indonesia president director Jongkie Sugiarto said the distributor had seen a sudden rise in requests for fuel pumps over the past few weeks. “Yes, there is a surge in fuel pump demand based on reports from our dealers, but we don’t know what’s causing it,” he said.

He said Hyundai was investigating what type of cars were experiencing the problem, where they were filling up and the damage to their pumps.

Last week, Blue Bird, the country’s largest taxi company, announced that 1,200 of its Toyota Limo taxis had experienced pump failures since early June. It blamed substandard Premium fuel for a build-up of sediment in the pumps and said Pertamina may be liable for repair costs, which it estimated at Rp 20 billion ($2.2 million).

Both Blue Bird and Express purchase subsidized Premium gasoline exclusively from Pertamina at discounted rates. Blue Bird buys around 5.7 million liters of fuel per month for its 11,000 taxis nationwide, according to Pertamina.

The oil company, meanwhile, has strenuously denied allegations that its Premium fuel is to blame for the fuel pump problems.

Speaking on Friday, Pertamina president director Karen Agustiawan challenged Blue Bird to prove that Pertamina had downgraded the quality of its Premium fuel.

“Whoever thinks that our Premium fuel is bad can go ahead and prove it. But if it turns out that Pertamina is right and they are wrong, I will sue them,” she said.

Karen said recent spot tests of fuel had proven that the quality of Premium fuel was well within the range the government deems acceptable.

Last week, Pertamina undertook checks on Premium gas sold at 16 stations in Greater Jakarta to monitor for possible quality problems with the fuel. On Friday, it announced that levels in all of the tested samples met state requirements for octane and sulphur content. Low octane in fuel can clog fuel pumps as can high levels of sulphur, eventually leading to breakdowns.

Johny Darmawan, president director of PT Toyota Astra Mobil, said on Friday that he was aware that Pertamina had carried out quality tests on its fuel. “However, we are still wondering why there are so many cars experiencing breakdowns, and not just Toyotas,” he said.

Johny said the company planned to sit down with Pertamina next week in an attempt to find a solution to the problem. In the meantime, the car distributor was focusing on fulfilling the increased demand for fuel pumps, he said.

Commenting on the fuel pump debate, Danang Parikesit, chairman of the Indonesian Transportation Community, blamed the ongoing problems on insufficient government oversight and called for independent testing of the fuel as soon as possible.

“The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry needs to increase scrutiny on Premium fuel quality. If it can’t do that, it should appoint an independent watchdog to it,” he said.