Implementation Of Biodiesel Encourages Sustainable Palm Business

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian government is running a biodiesel type fuel program as an effort to reduce dependence on petroleum while bringing Indonesian palm oil to a better and more sustainable one.

"This biodiesel program is not only a program of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources to use it as fuel, but also how to encourage palm oil in Indonesia to provide broad benefits for the national economy and specifically for farmers," said Director General of New Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Dadan Kusdiana as quoted by Antara, Friday, January 13.

Dadan admitted, when designing a biodiesel implementation program, the price of crude palm oil (CPO) was in the range of 275 US dollars per tonne.

This value continues to increase along with the increase in palm demand due to the implementation of biodiesel.

"Indonesia is still importing diesel even though the graph is decreasing. This is one of the breakthroughs and evidence that research and development results can be implemented and provide such broad benefits," said Dadan.

In addition to encouraging demand for palm oil, the government has also encouraged the development of crude palm oil processing plants into biodiesel.

The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources said that now many factories have been established to process crude palm oil into biodiesel in the Sumatra to Sulawesi region.

"Currently we are encouraging the construction of factories in Papua to encourage demand and spread in the Papua region," said Dadan.

On February 1, 2023, Indonesia began to implement the implementation of an increase in the percentage of biodiesel-type fuel mixing into diesel oil fuels from 30 percent (B30) to 35 percent (B35).

Through the biodiesel implementation program, Dadan continued, Indonesia can control diesel imports.

The government targets the distribution of biodiesel to reach 13.5 million kiloliters or 226,000 barrels per day for the implementation of the B35 program by 2023.

The value of foreign exchange that can be saved reaches around US$10.75 billion, equivalent to Rp161 trillion, employment as many as 1.65 million people, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 34.9 million tons.