Success with D-100, Pertamina is Ready to Produce Green Energy

Jakarta, 16 July 2020 – After successfully producing Green Diesel (D-100) through 100% palm oil processing, PT Pertamina (Persero) continues to move forward and is ready to produce other green energy, such as Green Gasoline and Green Avtur from domestic refineries in the coming years.

President Director of Pertamina, Nicke Widyawati, explained that Pertamina has the duty and important role in carrying out the government's mandate to maintain national energy security. Therefore, Pertamina continues to bring innovations that can have a huge impact on Indonesia.

This step is in line with the direction of President Joko Widodo, who stresses the importance of producing Biofuel by utilizing domestic natural resources to build national energy security and independence.

"Pertamina appreciates the support of the government and all parties so that Pertamina can continue to develop green energy such as B30, B50, and D-100. Pertamina has completed the preparation of the refinery and the Merah Putih catalyst, which will be followed by an economic study, " Nicke said during a visit to the RBDPO processing facility at the Dumai Refinery, Riau, Wednesday (7/15).

During a visit to the Dumai refinery, Vice Director of PT Kilang Pertamina International, Budi Santoso Syarif, said that besides Green Diesel, Pertamina is also currently developing other oil-based biofuels, namely Green Gasoline and Green Avtur.

"For Green Gasoline, Pertamina has conducted trials since 2018, 2019 and 2020 in the Plaju and Cilacap Refineries. However, the trial was only able to process RBDPO palm oil by 20%. While the trial to process palm oil into Green Avtur will be carried out at the end of 2020 at the Cilacap Refinery," he said.

According to Budi, although the Green Gasoline trial conducted by Pertamina is only able to process palm oil by 20%, this is the first in the world considering that processing palm oil into Green Gasoline has never been carried out on an operational scale.

"Processing palm oil into green diesel has also been carried out by several other companies in the world. However, processing palm oil into green gasoline has never been done in the world, and Pertamina is the first because so far, it is still limited to laboratory scale for research," continued Budi.

Besides Dumai, Pertamina will also build a Standalone Biorefinery in Cilacap with a capacity of 6,000 barrels per day and Standalone Biorefinery in Plaju with a capacity of 20,000 barrels per day. Both standalone Biorefineries will one day be able to produce Green Diesel and Green Avtur with 100% vegetable oil as raw material.

Budi added, the challenges ahead, Pertamina would develop not only green energy from CPO or palm oil but also from other resources such as algae, wheat, sorghum, and more. Pertamina will continue to utilize all domestic natural resources, to support the independence and national energy security.

At present, continued Budi, Pertamina continues to strive to optimize existing resources in Indonesia by optimizing the existing domestic market, as it is quite large. Processing palm oil into fuel has a very high TKDN (Total Domestic Content). It has the potential to reduce the country's transaction deficit, because palm oil is a domestic raw material whose transactions are carried out in the rupiah currency, and thus will have a positive impact on national economic growth.

As been known, Pertamina has been using FAME for the biodiesel program since 2006, and until 2017, for 11 years, FAME absorption reached 9.2 million KL. In 2018, Pertamina implemented the B20 Program in which the FAME absorption reached 3.2 million KL in which it was mixed in 69 locations. Through the B30 Program, in 2019, FAME absorption will increase sharply by 5.5 million KL, and by 2020 it is targeted to increase to 8.38 million KL.

The implementation of the B20 and B30 programs in 2019 has saved the country's foreign exchange by Rp 43.8 trillion. In 2020, Pertamina is targeting foreign exchange savings of Rp 63.4 trillion, with employment absorption of 1.2 million people. 

"Over time, there is a shifting trend in the use of fuels. Originally fossil fuels slowly shifted to renewable fuels. The pattern of meeting national energy has also changed from previously relying on foreign supply into domestic supply. For that, we must continue to strive to maximize in terms of empowerment and management of local resources that we have, " concluded Budi. **