MOSCOW (MRC) -- Indonesia will stop both liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and fuel imports by 2030 and plans big changes to its energy infrastructure to meet that target, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
President Joko Widodo has tasked the National Energy Council, a board made up of seven ministries and other stakeholders that plans energy policy, to devise a strategy to allow for a halt on LPG and fuel imports, said the council's secretary general, Djoko Siswanto.
Once a former OPEC member, maturing fields and investment lags has turned Indonesia to a net importer of oil and gas. The president has for years announced steps to cut imports, in a bid to contain the country's current account deficit.
The strategy includes building or upgrading refineries, converting refineries to biodiesel refineries, increasing domestic LPG production and building a gas pipeline with a target of 10 million gas connections, Djoko told CNBC Indonesia in a live telecast. "The government will encourage gas infrastructure development for public transportation," Djoko said, adding that the government was also optimizing biofuel production and promoting electric vehicles.
Indonesia is aiming to increase domestic crude oil production to 1 million barrels per day by 2030 by developing new oil fields, using enhanced oil recovery methods in existing oil fields and boosting production in marginal fields, Djoko added.
Indonesia, the world's top exporter of thermal coal, has long vowed to cut LPG imports while maximizing use of domestic coal assets, and creating jobs in a downstream coal industry, Djoko said, reiterating plans to convert coal to dimethyl ether as a substitute to LPG.
As MRC informed earlier, Enterprise Products Partners LP (Houston) announced Dec. 17 that the first vessel powered by liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) has been loaded at the Enterprise Hydrocarbon Terminal on the Houston Ship Channelm. The Very Large Gas Carrier (VLGC) BW Gemini, which had been retrofitted for dual fuel capabilities, was loaded with a record 590,000 bbl of LPG, including cargo and fuel.
We remind that in July, 2020, Enterprise Products conducted maintenance at its propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit in Mont Belvieu, Texas. This PDH unit has the capacity of 750,000 mt/y of propylene.
Propylene is the main feedstock for the production of polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 410,890 tonnes in January-March 2021, up by 56% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
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