PALMOILMAGAZINE, JAKARTA – The Ministry of Agriculture has projected that Indonesia will need around 20 million kiloliters (KL) of crude palm oil (CPO) annually to support the implementation of a B50 biodiesel program, which involves blending diesel fuel with 50% biodiesel.
This initiative is a key focus in President Prabowo Subianto’s administration, according to Muhammad Fauzan Ridha, Chair of the International Marketing Task Force at the Directorate General of Plantations, Ministry of Agriculture.
Currently, Indonesia is running a B35 program and plans to advance to B40 by January 2025. The next goal, B50, would require a significant increase in CPO use.
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Fauzan noted that the annual CPO demand for B35 is approximately 13.4 million KL, while B40 would likely need around 16.08 million KL. B50, however, would push CPO requirements to about 20 million KL, needing an additional 4–5 million KL of supply. However, Indonesia’s current biodiesel production capacity is only 17–18 million KL per year, making it essential to increase this to 25 million KL to fully support B50.
“This expansion would require idle capacity utilization of about 80% across existing industries,” Fauzan stated, as quoted Palmoilmagazine.com from Kumparan on Friday, October 25, 2024.
Fauzan also mentioned the government is still studying the potential to substitute CPO exports to the domestic needs namely about CPO derivative exports to European Union because of European Union Deforestation Regulation. But he emphasized it would not be easy because the exports to the continent were mostly the derivative products, not raw CPO.
He continued B50 implementation would always be studied with Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resource. The main focus would be about the supply and demand, economic evaluation, institutions, and infrastructure needs to support the program. “The study process could be continued until next years,” he said.
Director of Bioenergy Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resource, Edi said that CPO was exported to Europe and could be reaching about 3 – 5 million tons. It could be turned over to fulfill the domestic needs, including to support B50. Besides the export option to many countries, the government still considered it as the part to realize market diversification. (P2)
