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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Indonesia began testing
biodiesel with a bio-content of 30% in cars, its energy ministry said, as the
Southeast Asian nation pushes to boost local markets for its vast palm oil crop,
said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
The
world’s top palm oil exporter aims to make it mandatory for all biodiesel to
have a 30% bio-content, known as B30, from next year, up from 20%
now.
Industry experts have said that could push consumption of
bio-content made from palm oil to as much as 9 million kilolitres (KL) per year,
up from an estimated 6.2 KL in 2019.
The test will be conducted over the
next four months with various passenger vehicles and trucks, Dadan Kusdiana,
head of research and development at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry,
told reporters.
The passenger vehicles will cover 50,000 km (31,000
miles) and trucks 40,000 km during the road test, Kusdiana said.
The
ministry also plans to start testing trains, ships and heavy machinery in the
mining sector using the fuel.
To offset slowing global demand for palm
oil, Indonesia has been pushing to increase domestic consumption of the
commodity, used in products ranging from fuels to soap. Nearly all the country’s
biofuels are made from palm.
As MRC informed earlier,
Total is set to start up a biodiesel refinery using palm oil whose planned
launch last summer sparked opposition from farmers producing vegetable oil and
from environmental activists. |
