Pertamina Presents Biofuels Business and Decarbonization Roadmap at Southeast Asia-Latin American Dialogue
Singapore, October 16, 2024 – PT Pertamina (Persero) outlined the business roadmap in the biofuels and decarbonization sectors to businesspeople and practitioners in Singapore. The presentation was delivered directly by Nicke Widyawati, President Director of Pertamina, during the Southeast Asia-Latin American Dialogues (SALA Dialogues) held on Wednesday (16/10) at the INSEAD Hoffmann Institute, Singapore.
In the session "Fuelling the Future: Biofuels and the Decarbonization Journey," Nicke explained that Indonesia faces four challenges in the future: being a net oil importer, the 2060 net zero emission target, the goal of becoming a high-income country, and creating job opportunities. She stated that biofuels and decarbonization programs could answer these challenges.
"Indonesia, through Pertamina, has been implementing biodiesel initiatives since 2010 and has successfully produced and utilized B35 biodiesel, which has proven effective in substituting diesel imports. Since April 2019, Pertamina has stopped importing diesel and aviation fuel. Additionally, B35 has reduced CO2 emissions by 32.7 million tons by 2023," Nicke explained.
Another advantage of biodiesel is the ease of the blending process or mixing fossil fuel with biodiesel. While biofuels need large-scale refineries, biodiesel blending can be done at the final terminal.
"The beauty of biodiesel is the ease of blending, which can be done at the fuel or final terminal. Pertamina has more than 1,000 fuel terminals in Indonesia. It will encourage bioethanol plant development, which will also boost the local economy and create jobs," Nicke added.
Nicke further explained that the success of biodiesel implementation will be replicated for gasoline products, which is expected to reduce imports while achieving national energy security. Pertamina has already started this with the E5 biofuel product.
"We have begun biofuel production with E5 in some regions of Java, particularly in East Java, and are gradually increasing it," Nicke said.
She also mentioned that Pertamina cannot achieve the energy transition and sustainable innovation of green energy products on its own. Collaboration and knowledge transfer with strategic business partners and other countries are essential. In this dialogue, Nicke opened the possibility of collaborating with Latin American countries to jointly develop biodiesel and biofuel.
"For the bioethanol program, we see the potential for collaboration between Indonesia and Brazil. We want to learn holistically how Brazil has successfully implemented bioethanol, starting from the plantation process, bioethanol plant development, technology, attracting investors, and regulatory aspects. The hope is that the bioethanol program will support the achievement of net-zero carbon targets," Nicke concluded.
The SALA Dialogues were attended by 150 businesspeople and practitioners from various sectors and countries across Southeast Asia and Latin America. The event aims to build global collaboration to find solutions to net-zero carbon issues and global food security challenges, which could open up new business opportunities and investments between nations.
Pertamina, as a leading company in the energy transition, is committed to supporting the Net Zero Emission 2060 target by continuously promoting programs that directly impact the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) achievement. All these efforts align with Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) implementation across all Pertamina's business lines and operations.**