JakartaPost-March 14, 2024
The European Union’s deforestation regulation (EUDR) will make it harder for Indonesian biodiesel to enter the EU market, as well as that of other countries, experts believe. Biodiesel output in Indonesia, the world’s third-largest producer, rose 11.3 percent to 13.15 million kiloliters (kl) in 2023, according to data from the Indonesian Biodiesel Producers Association (APROBI). Exports, however, plummeted almost 50 percent to just 187,810 kl in 2023 from 371,000 kl in the preceding year. In January of this year, biodiesel exports sank about 73 percent month-to-month (mtm) to just 5,746 kl. APROBI secretary-general Ernest Gunawan expected the regulation, once enforced, to further reduce biodiesel exports, though he declined to provide an estimate of the impact. “We will continue to collaborate with the government […] to address the EUDR problem. Apart from that, we will focus on the domestic distribution of fatty acid methyl ester [FAME],” he told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday. On Feb. 2, the US Foreign Agricultural Service revised down its estimate for Indonesian palm oil exports in marketing year 2023/24 to 27.9 million tons on the assumption of lower supply, higher domestic use and reduced export demand. Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry’s acting renewables director general Jisman Hutajulu attributed the decline in Indonesian biodiesel exports to EU trade protectionism against Indonesian biofuel products, with “the latest [case in point] being the EUDR”. “All these challenges have led to Indonesian biodiesel exports declining by up to 70 percent,” he said on Feb. 27, as reported by Bisnis. Read more at:
