Indonesia Needs Seven to Nine Additional Biodiesel Plants to Implement B40

TEMPO.CO, Bali – The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources said Indonesia needs an additional seven to nine crude palm oil (CPO) processing plants to produce biodiesel for B50 fuel.

Director of Bioenergy at the Energy Ministry, Edi Wibowo, said that the additional CPO processing plants are aimed at covering the shortage of biodiesel supply for B50. Based on calculations, the biodiesel demand for B50 reaches 19.7 million kiloliters, while the current capacity of vegetable oil fuel (BBN) production is only 15.8 million kiloliters.

“There is still a shortage of about 3.9 million kiloliters. Therefore, it is necessary to build around seven to nine plants or increase the capacity of existing plants,” he said at the 20th Indonesian Palm Oil Conference and 2025 Price Outlook (IPOC 2024) on Thursday, November 7, 2024.

Edi mentioned that the supply shortage opens up investment opportunities for companies. Considering that the implementation of B50 requires an investment of US$ 360 million.

“Actually, there is also an investment opportunity if the government needs to allocate around almost US$360 million for the additional investment,” he said. “If the factories remain the same, whether the implementation of B50 will just stay there,” he continued.

Regarding the plan to implement B40 next year, Eddy said that his ministry has calculated that there is still a production capacity shortfall of 0.3 million kiloliters. However, he said this could still be addressed by asking the Vegetable Fuel Business Entity (BUBBN) to increase its production capacity.

Citing Antara, Energy Minister Bahlil Lahadalia said his ministry was preparing a concept to develop biodiesel fuel up to biodiesel 100 as part of President Prabowo Subianto’s effort to achieve energy self-sufficiency.

“One of the concepts being prepared is to develop all concepts up to B100, but of course, it will be done gradually. We will report the progress later,” Bahlil said in Jakarta on Sunday, October 11, 2024.

Based on the Ministry of ESDM’s roadmap, the next plan to achieve the B100 program is the implementation of B40, which is scheduled for January next year. This will be followed by the proposal for the implementation of B50 in 2028.

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