B40 biodiesel program unlikely to continue next year

In Indonesia, Reuters reports that Indonesia is unlikely to proceed with plans to raise the bio-content of its palm oil-based biodiesel to 40% next year as it struggles to fund the program, an energy ministry official told parliament on Monday.

Instead, the Southeast Asian country will retain its biodiesel B30 programme which makes it compulsory for diesel in Indonesia to be blended with 30% fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) made out of palm oil next year, Dadan Kusdiana, the director general of the country’s energy ministry, said.

“B40 is not ready,” Dadan said, referring to the biodiesel programme containing 40% bio-content and adding that Indonesia had allocated 9.2 million kilolitres of FAME to be used next year.

“Supporting B30 is now very challenging from the funding side, so we see that B40 will be more difficult,” he added.