Pertamina Develops Jet Fuel from Palm Oil

Pertamina Develops Jet Fuel from Palm Oil, BioAvtur
Advertisement

Pertamina has succeeded in developing jet fuel (AVTUR) from palm oil. This is a concrete step in Pertamina’s support to the government regarding the energy transition, particularly by developing various low-carbon energy projects.

In the presentation material for Pertamina’s President Director, Nicke Widyawati, Pertamina is currently initiating several low-carbon energy projects as part of the company’s commitment to reducing emission production.

One of the low-carbon project initiatives is Sustainable Aviation Fuel. Through this project, Pertamina is developing BioAvtur J2.4, or palm oil-based jet fuel at the Cilacap refinery.

“It is proven, it provides performance equivalent to fossil-based aviation turbine fuel (AVTUR) but with lower carbon emissions,” explained Nicke in his Exposure material, Monday (8/8/2022).

In addition, the Cilacap Refinery has also produced Bioavtur from RBDPO with a capacity of 8,000 barrels per day and the Plaju refinery is in the process of producing Bioavtur from CPO with an estimated capacity of 20,000 barrels per day.

Indeed, Indonesia successfully carried out a flight test of the CN235-220 FTB aircraft belonging to PT Dirgantara Indonesia using AVTUR mixed with palm kernel oil (bioavtur) of 2.4% yesterday, in October 2021.

This bioavtur is AVTUR production from refined bleached degummed palm kernel oil (RBDPKO) using a “red and white” catalyst made by ITB mixed with kerosene (co-processing) at Pertamina’s Cilacap refinery.

The result of mixing 2.4% bioavtur is called Jet Avtur 2.4 (J2.4). Specifically for J2.4, it means that the mixture of RBDPKO in this co-processing refinery reaches 2.4%.

In addition to BioAvtur, in the initiation of several low-carbon energy projects including Pertamina developing Solar Energy in several operating areas to meet energy needs.

The example in Rokan has groundbreaking 25 Megawatts (MW). Then those already operating are in Dumai 2 MW, Cilacap 1.34 MW, and 143 gas stations each with a capacity of 1 MW.

As for other projects, PNRE and PRPP have signed a Head of Agreement (HoA) to supply the energy needs of the Tuban GRR (electricity, steam, and water) from an LNG power plant with a capacity of 570 MW.

Then, the Java-1 PLTGU with a capacity of 1,760 MW succeeded in carrying out the first fire in February 2022. Furthermore, Pertamina launched a green energy product as a Generator Set (Genset) for Electric Vehicles (EV) at the Formula E Jakarta E-Prix 2022.