Recently, Indonesian state oil company Pertamina CEO Nick Vidyawati said that the company plans to blend more gasoline products with ethanol in 2024 to provide alternative fuels to the public. To do this, the company will import more ethanol.
Vidyavati told a parliamentary hearing that the company will blend 90-octane gasoline with 7% ethanol to improve the quality of the fuel. Gasoline with an octane rating of 90 is the most widely used Pertalite brand fuel product in Indonesia. Pertamina will also increase the ethanol content in another fuel product from 5% to 8%. The fuel, called Pertamax Green 95, is currently only available at 17 filling stations in Jakarta and Surabaya.
Pertamina will import ethanol due to limited domestic production of biofuels made from syrup. The current annual domestic production of fuel-grade ethanol in Indonesia is estimated to be approximately 63,000 kiloliters. Pertamina did not provide an estimate of how much ethanol it would seek to import.
Pertamina spokesman Fadjar Djoko Santoso said the company has not yet decided how many gas stations it will sell biofuel products at next year. It is unclear whether the plan will affect fuel subsidies in Indonesia. The government currently subsidizes the sale of Pertalite to keep prices stable at IDR 10,000 per liter.