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The Energy Ministry on Friday said tests conducted on Premium gasoline sold by state oil and gas company Pertamina found the fuel met quality standards, but the ministry would continue to search for the cause of the breakdowns of thousands of car fuel pumps in Jakarta.

Evita Legowo, director general of oil and gas at the ministry, said tests on fuel samples taken from four locations confirmed that the fuel met all of the ministry’s quality specifications. However, she said the ministry did not consider the matter resolved.

“We are far from satisfied. We still haven’t figured out what caused the malfunctioning of thousands of fuel pumps.”

The fuel samples were taken from the fuel depot of Gamya Taxi, the city fuel depot at Plumpang, North Jakarta, and two undisclosed locations. Evita said all samples passed 15 categories of tests, including octane, sulfur content and lead content.

Evita said the ministry had agreed to cooperate with the Association of Indonesian Automotive Industries (Gaikindo) in an effort to discover the cause of the breakdowns.

“Based on our discussion, there is a possibility that there is incompatibility between the fuel pump specs and the Premium specs,” she said.

The controversy over Pertamina’s Premium began last month when Jakarta’s biggest taxi company, Blue Bird Group, reported that 1,200 of its taxis had suffered fuel pump malfunctions, and blamed impurities in the gasoline.

The Express taxi company and Gamya reported similar problems. Gamya said 270 of its taxis had broken down because of fuel pump problems, and threatened to drop Pertamina as a fuel distributor. Gamya said it had suffered Rp 500 million ($56,000) in losses over the past month due to repair costs and lost revenue.

The Committee Against Leaded Gasoline (KPBB) last month said its tests on Pertamina’s Premium fuel found it to be contaminated with zinc, iron, water and mud, and that a survey of repair shops in Jakarta had revealed complaints of fuel pumps damaged by those substances.

Gamya president director Mintarsih A Latif was quoted by Tempointeractive.com as saying independent tests conducted in Thailand found that the sulphur content in Pertamina’s gasoline exceeded the normal level.

Pertamina has repeatedly denied that its fuel was substandard, calling the accusations baseless and questioning the methods of tests that found impurities in Premium.

Djaelani Sutomo, marketing director of Pertamina, said he had received a report from Gaikindo that there were around 4,900 fuel pump related cases in the past two months.

“Since this whole fuel fiasco started, Pertamina had experienced a drop in Premium fuel consumption in July when this issue was hot, but now, it’s all normal again,” he said, without elaborating the details.

Evita said the ministry would investigate the possibility that the fuel, though up to standards, was incompatible with some fuel pumps.

“Together with the [ATPM], we will continue evaluating fuel quality monitoring systems in gas stations, and advise motorists to use fuels that is in line with their vehicle specification,” she said. ATPM refers to an association of car dealers.

“We also call for state oil and gas company Pertamina, as the main supplier of fuel in Indonesia, to improve fuel quality control.”

On Friday, Blue Bird said it was still not satisfied with the government’s finding that the fuel was up to standards.

“It does not answer what caused the breakdowns. If compatibility was the case, then shouldn’t this case have happened years before? Why now?” Teguh Wijayanto, head of public relations for Blue Bird, told the Jakarta Globe.

He said Blue Bird taxis were Toyota Limos made in 2005 or more recently.

“Now, we demand that the ATPMs give an explanation to us,” he said.