Staff Of The Minister Of Trade Zulhas: Temporary B35 Program To Accelerate Absorption Of Oil Palm FFB

Trade Minister, Zulkifli Hasan. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The government plans to increase the biodiesel program to 35 percent or B35 from the previous 30 percent or B30. The aim is to accelerate the absorption of domestic fresh fruit bunches (FFB) of palm oil. However, this program is temporary until FFB prices return to normal.

Special Staff to the Minister of Trade, Oke Nurwan, said this step was taken to speed up the emptying of crude palm oil (CPO) storage facilities. The hope is that palm oil companies can immediately absorb fresh fruit pandanus from farmers to be processed into cooking oil or diesel.

"The B35 departs from FFB, which is not absorbed by PKS because the accumulated CPO channels must be distributed immediately, either through export acceleration or other interests," said Oke in a CNBC program, Monday, July 25.

Even so, Oke emphasized that the B35 program is temporary. This means that when the price of oil palm fresh fruit bunches returns to normal, it will be lowered back to B30.

"Perhaps it is temporary in an effort to absorb FFB from farmers. After returning to normal, we can return to B30," he explained.

Until May 2022, local consumption of crude palm oil was only 7.74 million tons or 38.94 percent of the total production in the January to May 2022 period of 19.88 million tons.

Meanwhile, in the January-May 2021 period, local consumption only reached 7.68 million tons of the total production for the first 5 months of 2021 which amounted to 19.6 million tons.

As previously reported, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) plans to implement the use of biodiesel with a blend of 30 percent palm oil (B30) into a mixture of 35 percent palm oil (B35) by the end of July 2022.

Director of Bioenergy at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Edi Wibowo, said that his party was finalizing the specifications for the B35 and B40 trials.

"From all raw materials, it is sufficient. The biodiesel industry itself has reached 17.14 million kiloliters (KL). It is sufficient and hopefully it can run," said Edi in Energy Corner, Monday, July 11.

In terms of regulation, Edi said, there were no significant changes because biodiesel would still use existing regulations.

However, his party is also working on regulations at the ministerial decree level which will regulate the percentage of biodiesel blends flexibly.