“Yes, it’s going to be an upfront investment, but we are safe,” Pertamina’s Chief Executive Karen Agustiawan told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview on the sideline of the World Economic Forum.

Agustiawan said that by having more storage tanks, Pertamina will be able to buy more crude oil and oil products when prices are cheap.

“Once we have storage, it’s like saving,” she added. The company might even sell back the crude and crude products in the market when the prices are high if it still has it in surplus.

Although a producer of crude and oil products, Pertamina still has to import crude and oil products to meet domestic demand.

Agustiawan said that Pertamina is looking to build new storage tanks in Sambu Island near Singapore, Tanjung Uban in Bintan Island and Lawe Lawe in East Kalimantan.

“Our current storage capacity currently is not enough,” the company CEO noted.

She, however, declined to mention the size of investment Pertamina will earmark to build new storage tanks.

Pertamina will continue the current practice of buying dollars directly from the central bank and state banks to pay its imports to not create a large boost for the dollar, although the U.S. currency is in a declining trend against the rupiah, she said.

The nation’s central bank, Bank Indonesia, ordered Pertamina, one of the single largest frequent dollar buyers among Indonesian companies, not to buy the dollar in the spot market following a sharp decline in the rupiah’s value against the dollar when investors fled from high-yielding risky assets in late 2008–sparked by the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the U.S.

Following the success of its maiden $1.5 billion bond issuance overseas last month, Pertamina will look to tap the global bond market again next year to help finance its capital expenditure next year, Agustiawan said.

PT Pertamina will more than double its capital spending to $9 billion next year from a target of $4 billion this year, partly to boost oil and gas production, a government official said Tuesday.

The company is on the lookout for acquisitions both at home and overseas to boost crude oil and gas production as the company is striving to become a world- class company.

Agustiawan added that Pertamina has been invited by Angola’s state-owned oil company Senangol to jointly operate a block in Iraq, which was awarded to the Angolan company during Saddam Hussein’s regime. Agustiawan, however, declined to provide further details.

Pertamina is also in talks to buy a stake in a block in Iraq, which is owned by one of its three partners in the East Natuna natural gas projects. Agustiawan again declined to name the party it is talking with. Its three partners in the East Natuna project are Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), Total SA (TOT) and Malaysia’s Petronas.

Pertamina is also still interested to buy a stake in the Indonesian offshore oil and gas Masela block, which is currently 90% owned by Japan’s Inpex Corp.

“They are very keen for Pertamina to be inside the consortium,” she added. She was unable to mention the size of the equity Pertamina is looking to buy in the block as Inpex has also invited Total to take part in the project.

The Japanese company, and PT Energi Mega Persada (ENRG.JK), which holds the remaining 10% stake, will build a facility to process natural gas to be produced from the Masela block with annual capacity of 2.5 million tons.

Pertamina is bidding to buy a stake in a block in Angola, people familiar with the plan told The Wall Street Journal recently. But Agustiawan declined to comment on it.