Indonesia Targets 10% Biofuel Use by 2010
24 July 2006
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| Indonesia’s oil production. Click to enlarge. |
Xinhua. Indonesia is targeting a 10% domestic usage of biofuels by 2010, according to Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro. The Minister said that the biofuel would be made from casava, sugar cane, palm and castor.
To meet the goal, the minister said that the government planned to provide 6 million hectares of land.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will issue a decree on the establishment of a national team to control and make a blueprint of the government policy on biofuel energy. Pertamina, the state oil and gas company, will take part in the domestic marketing.
Indonesia and Malaysia—the two largest global suppliers of palm oil—each recently agreed to reserve annually six million tonnes per year of palm oil for biodiesel production. For Indonesia, that represents about 42% of its current output. (Earlier post.)
Indonesia is the only Asian member of the OPEC, and has become a net oil importer rather than exporter. The country’s oil output has been in steady decline since 2000, as production from aging fields have not been supplemented with new discoveries.
So Indonesia's oil production is declining since 1990 and last year, they became Net Oil Importer. And they are in OPEC just for name sake.
This year, Britain will also become Oil Importer.
Soon, 1 country after another will become Oil Importer and the remaining Exporters will enjoy the Prize.
Posted by: Max Reid | 24 July 2006 at 01:41 PM
It is inevitable for Indonesia to shift from a net exporter to a net importer due to population (and lack of effective population planning), development, and obscenely low petroleum fuel prices to placate the populus from from failures due to lack of leadership, ineptitude, and corruption (absolute power corrupts absolutely). That said, how will they manage this? Will they level whats left of their rain forests, or will they institute something better. Similar questions are raised worldwide for tropical/subtropical nations.
Posted by: allen Z | 24 July 2006 at 02:21 PM
Indonesia is overwhelmingly (88%) Muslim. I suspect that is a strong reason they get along with the other prime OPEC nations, even though they are no longer exporting.
Posted by: Sid Hoffman | 24 July 2006 at 02:33 PM
Ultimately money speaks.
Indonesai will expect lower Oil prices while other OPEC nations will expect higher prices. Finally Indonesia will be shown the door.
Development enabled more of their people to buy vehicles and increased the consumption. And the declining production equally contributed to becoming a Net Importer.
Posted by: Max Reid | 24 July 2006 at 03:03 PM