- The Indonesian president-elect hopes to implement mandatory 50 per cent palm oil-based biodiesel blending by early next year.
- A biofuel expert said the biodiesel industry may need to improve the quality of its products to ensure the fuel remains stable.
Indonesian president-elect Prabowo Subianto hopes to implement mandatory 50 per cent palm oil-based biodiesel blending by early next year. He said this would cut fuel imports by $20 billion per year.
Indonesia said it planned to raise the blending to 40 per cent in January 2025, from 35 per cent now, to reduce fuel imports and lower emissions from fossil fuels. Prabowo takes over in October from incumbent Joko Widodo, whose administration has ordered the palm oil industry to prepare for B50, a 50 per cent blend.
Tests have already started on the higher blending preparation. “We are at B35 now, and we will accelerate to B40, B50,” Prabowo said. He noted that once the blending reaches B50, 50 per cent biodiesel made of palm oil, the country will save $20 billion a year.
The chairman of Indonesia‘s biggest palm oil producers association, GAPKI, said B50 cannot be implemented in early 2025 as it has not been tested. According to GAPKI, B50 will consume an estimated 18 million metric tons of crude palm oil, up from the estimated 11 million used for B35 this year.
Indonesia Biofuel Producer Association APROBI said producers would need time to test the B50 fuel and increase their production capacity to meet the demand.
Tatang Hernas Soerawidjaja, a biofuel expert at Bandung Institute of Technology, said the biodiesel industry may need to improve the quality of its products to ensure the fuel remains stable for higher mandatory blending.
He said biodiesel is susceptible to forming sediment when in contact with oxygen, especially during transportation and storage, which could clog engine filters.
“Some biodiesel producers may need to install new equipment to meet the new standard, which would take six months. After that, the commercialisation tests will test the fuel on vehicles, and the storage tests will take six months. It would be wise to implement it by the end of 2025 at the earliest,” Tatang added.