Pertamina Explains Six Green Business Opportunities In The Era Of Decarbonization

Senior Vice President (SVP) Business Development of PT Pertamina Wisnu Medan Santoso. (Photo: Mery Handayani/VOI)

JAKARTA - The world is currently starting to transition from using fossil energy to energy that is more environmentally friendly. Not to forget, Indonesia is also committed to carrying out an energy transition with the Net Zero Emission (NZE) target by 2060 or sooner.

These changes make energy companies that usually rely on oil and gas (oil and gas), they must start adapting to low-carbon businesses.

Senior Vice President (SVP) Business Development of PT Pertamina Wisnu Medan Santoso said, seeing this condition, PT Pertamina also changed the image of the company from oil and gas company to energy company as an effort to answer the challenges of today's development.

"That's a solution, it can't only be from one dimension, for example only oil or gas, but it's multidimensional. So the solution to answer it will involve a lot of other energy," he said in a discussion session in Sarinah, Jakarta, Tuesday, September 10.

This energy transition process is carried out, one of which is through decarbonization. Wisnu said there were at least six new business opportunities that emerged in the decarbonization process.

First, continued Wisnu, opportunities for the biofuel sector business. According to Wisnu, this new business niche will play a major role for PT Pertamina.

"Biofuel will have a very big role in the future, all bio-based," he said.

Second, continued Wisnu, the business opportunity for power plants based on renewable energy, including geothermal. Indonesia is the country with the greatest geothermal potential in the world.

"Besides geothermal, there are also many other potentials that we can develop, such as diesel (surya) and wind (wind)," he said.

Third, continued Wisnu, business opportunities that have great potential in the future are the capture and injection of carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). This business opportunity cannot be separated from the commitment of the whole world government to maintain the earth's temperature.

The worldwide government committee is contained in the Paris Agreement. In this advancement, countries are committed to maintaining an increase in the earth's temperature of no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius so that it does not have a negative impact on the environment.

Thus, CCS plays an important role by capturing carbon from the air, then storing it in the reservoir.

He said this was a big business opportunity.

"Indonesia has a huge potential for reservoirs so that it can become a very good storage area," explained Wisnu.

Fourth, continued Wisnus, business opportunities for electric vehicles and their batteries. This business has begun to be regressive by other state-owned companies, namely PT PLN.

"We also see the appearance of cars, especially EVs from China are also very aggressive lately," he said.

Fifth, continued Wisnu, business opportunities originating from clean energy or clean fuel such as hydrogen, ammonia, to synthetic fuel. According to Wisnu, the clean fuel business will become a trend in the future.

He said, the use of clean fuel has now been implemented by several countries. For example, Japan and Korea rely on their power plants that use hydrogen-based fuel.

For example, gas plants, they burn together with hydrogen. So, they have a mandate to slowly increase the portion of hydrogen so that the carbon footprint decreases. Then, for example, coal plants are slowly supplied by biomass which is more renewable in nature," he explained.

Finally, continued Wisnus, the opportunity for the carbon trade business. According to him, carbon credit has great potential in the future considering that not all countries can decarbonize.

"Sometimes there are countries that decarbonize it, it can be cheaper and more efficient, carbon credit can be traded to industrial countries where if they do it it can be more expensive," he said.