Refinery in Plaju to Produce Palm Oil-Based Green Fuel
PT Pertamina (Persero) will use its oil refinery in Plaju, South Sumatera to produce palm oil-based green fuels.
PT Pertamina (Persero) will use its oil refinery in Plaju, South Sumatera to produce palm oil-based green fuels. Feasibility study on this plan has been completed by Directorate General of New Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation (NREEC) of Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MERM), collaborated with Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). Director of Bioenergy at NREEC of MERM Adrian Febi Misna said the study has showed that Plaju refinery is ready to produce green gasoline with current production composition of palm oil-based fuels is 7.5%. Pertamina continues to increase the composition to reach 100% to produce green fuels. Plaju refinery is an aging refinery Pertamina operates, commenced operations in 1930. It has a processing capacity of 125 thousand barrels per day. The refinery can be modernized and adapted to produce palm oil-based fuels. “The ideal would be to build a new refinery, but it needs a lot of investment,” Adrian said in Jakarta, Thursday (20/12/2018), as quoted by Kata Data. Apart from Plaju refinery, Pertamina has also another old one in Dumai, Riau, with a refinery capacity of 170 thousand barrel per day. The feasibility study will be carried out on March 2019. Pertamina has been collaborating with Eni, an Italian oil and gas company, to develop green fuels refinery. For this purpose, Pertamina is also doing business with PT Perkebunan Nusantara (PTPN), a state-owned plantation company which will supply palm oil. ***