LDC group inaugurates biodiesel plant in Lampung
Wednesday, April 6 2016 - 02:33 PM WIB
The plant was inaugurated by Sudjoko Harsono Adi, Director of Bioenergy at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR), on behalf of Director General of New, Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Ridha Mulyana. Present at the inauguration ceremony were among others Lampung Governor Ridho Ficardo and Swiss Ambassador in Indonesia Yvonne Baumann, the ministry said in a statement.
The biodiesel power plant is located on Jl. Soekarno-Hatta Km. 10, Way Lunik subdistrict, Panjang district, Bandar Lampung mayoralty.
The biodiesel power plant has an installed capacity of 420,000 metric tons, equivalent to 482,000 kiloliters of biodiesel per year. With the new biodiesel plant having come into operation, the national installed biodiesel production capacity has increased to 8.7 million kl per year, the ministry said.
In his speech read out by Sudjoko, Ridha said biodiesel development is part of the directorate general?s priority programs.
?The utilization of biodiesel (in Indonesia) dates back to 2006 and keeps being promoted following the issuance of the MEMR Regulation No. 32/2008 as amended by the MEMR Regulation No. 12/2015 which makes biodiesel utilization mandatory. The utilization of biodiesel on the domestic market has been on the increasing trend, from 1.05 million kl in 2013 to 1.84 million in 2014,? he said.
Under the existing regulation, the mandatory level of biodiesel in diesel oil was set at 15 percent (B15). The mandatory level has increased to 20 percent (B20) this year and will further increase to 30 percent next year.
The main challenge for biodiesel utilization at present is the big gap between the price of diesel oil and that of biodiesel caused by the drop in oil prices and the absence of subsidy allocation for biodiesel in the state budget.
The problem has however been solved with the establishment of the Agency for the Management of Palm Oil Funds (BPDPKS) on June 10, 2015, which is tasked to cover the difference between the market index prices of biodiesel and subsidized diesel oil. Thanks to the BPDPKS, since August 2015, the absorption of biodiesel on the domestic market has started to increase. The absorption of biodiesel in five months since BPDPKS started payment accounted for 80 percent of absorption of biodiesel throughout 2015.
He said the utilization of biodiesel is in line with the government?s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas by 29 percent by 2030, allows the country to save foreign exchange reserves by reducing diesel oil imports, and create jobs on farm and off farm.
?Thanks to the biodiesel production facility in Lampung and the strong business platform of PT LDC Indonesia, we expect the production will be sustainable and supply of biodiesel from Lampung will be able to meet the increasing needs for biodiesel,? he said.
LDC Group has a broad experience in producing biodiesel and industrial commodity trade. On the global level, LDC Group has three biodiesel production facilities, located in Lagos, Argentine (1800 tons/day), Wittenburg, Germany (600 tons/day), Claypool, USA (900 tons/day)
Editing by Johannes Simbolon