Continue Program B40 To B50, Government Reviews Options To Transfer CPO Exports To Europe For Domestic Needs

Director General of New, Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Eniya Listiani Dewi. (Photo: ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Director General of New, Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation (EBTKE) of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM), Eniya Listiani Dewi, revealed that currently her ministry is reviewing options to divert crude palm oil (CPO) exports or crude palm oil aimed at countries in Europe to be used for domestic needs.

The amount of CPO which will be transferred is 3 to 5 million tons of CPO and is planned to be used for the mandatory biodiesel B50 program which is a mixture of 50 percent diesel and 50 percent CPO.

"Later, there will be a scenario, for example we go to B50, the idea of the Minister of Agriculture states that export levies can go up, we can sell high international prices. The way maybe we, the Europeans, were detained first, so we didn't send them to Europe," he said, quoted on Tuesday, September 10.

Eniya said this was actually the idea of the Minister of Agriculture (Mentan) Amran Sulaiman to divert Indonesia's CPO exports which were restrained due to European regulations related to the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).

"Europe is the most noisy about the CPO problem, so don't just send it! So that prices to other countries can go up, so export levies can get more," continued Eniya.

Present on the same occasion, Director of Bioenergy at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Edi Wibowo said that until now there are 3 to 5 million tons of Indonesian CPO that are still being held back due to the policy. This program is also in line with the statement of the Elected President, Prabowo Subianto, who stated that he would use CPO for biodiesel needs.

"The difference between 3-5 million tons that have been exported to Europe is a problem there, rather than being used there, yesterday Mr. Prabowo said, instead of not wanting to buy, I will use domestic, one of which is for the Ministry of Agriculture program, that's what B50 encourages," explained Edi.

Meanwhile, the biodiesel 50 program will be accelerated in the Prabowo Sumbianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka administration.

Initially, the program was targeted to start in 2029, but was accelerated to next year.

Responding to this plan, the Intermediate Policy Analyst of the State Revenue Policy Center (PKPN) of the Fiscal Policy Agency (BKF) of the Ministry of Finance (Kemenkeu), Nursidik Istiawan admitted that he had not conducted a study regarding the impact of the implementation of the Prabowo-Gibran program.

"B50 impacts on exports, we haven't done any calculations that way," said Nursidik at the Palm Oil Contribution Press Tour for the State Budget and the Economy, written Friday, August 30.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the Indonesian Palm Oil Entrepreneurs Association (Gapki) Eddy Martono said the implementation of B50 would suck up palm oil production allocated for export.

Based on Gapki data, domestic crude palm oil (CPO) production was recorded at 54.84 million tons. This production was absorbed for consumption of 24.34 million tons.