Pertamina starts supplying biodiesel to industries

State-owned gas, oil company PT Pertamina has started supplying biodiesel to industrial consumers.

In the first phase of the program, the firm supplied 28 industrial consumers in Jakarta, Banten and West Java with the fuel starting Nov.1. It would gradually supply the fuel to a total of 436 industrial consumers in the three provinces, General Manager for Fuel Marketing of Pertamina's Region III, Maulanatazi HZ said on Tuesday.

"The biodiesel has a FAME (fatty acid methyl ester) content of five percent," he said.

The firm launched the biofuel-for-industry program in a ceremony on Tuesday at Pertamina's fuel oil depot in Plumpang, North Jakarta, witnessed by Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro and Pertamina's CEO Ari Soemarno.

Ari said Pertamina targeted to expand the supply of the fuel for industrial consumers across Java and Bali in 2009.

He said the firm could now expand the supply of biofuel on the domestic market following the decline in the price of the fuel. ?Until the middle of 2008, there were a lot of export demand for the fuel that Pertamian found it difficult to expand the use of biofuel on the domestic market," he said.

The program was in line with the Energy and Mineral Resources Minister's Regulation No 32/2008 requiring fuel suppliers sell 2.5 percent of their total supply to industrial and commercial consumers in the form of biofuels.

Director of General of Oil and Gas Evita Legowo said the government is formulating the benchmark price of biofuel, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year. (Godang)