16 September 2021

Medan, (Analisa) - The potential of palm oil in Indonesia is increasingly promising as demand continues to increase, both domestically and abroad. This is because the use of palm material is needed by three sectors at once, namely energy, food and consumer goods.

“Previously, the demand for Crude Palm Oil (CPO) came more from abroad, but now the demand from within the country is slowly increasing. This makes us happy. If the demand for CPO is more from within the country, then the black campaign carried out by outside countries to drop the price of Indonesian CPO can no longer be done, “said President Director of PT Mahkota Group Tbk, Usli Sarsi, Monday (13/9).

 The government, Usli said, is very serious in encouraging the use of palm oil for various purposes. From the energy sector, the use of Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) which is processed CPO mixed into diesel fuel is one of the efforts to use palm oil in Indonesia. The government had planned to use FAME mixed into diesel fuel up to 50%. However, it has not yet been achieved and is still 30%. With the government's seriousness, FAME will be able to replace diesel fuel.

Not only diesel fuel for diesel engines, the government through Pertamina has also begun to develop aircraft fuel that can be mixed with palm oil.

The use of palm oil is an alternative to sustainable energy use. The use of fossil fuels, mines such as coal cannot be done sustainably because it continues to decrease. It is also not environmentally friendly. Likewise, the use of nuclear for energy needs is starting to be abandoned. The earthquake that occurred in Japan some time ago had a major impact due to the damaged nuclear industry. Now Japan, which used to use nuclear for energy needs, is starting to switch to other energy, one of which is from palm oil.

“If there is more use of energy from palm oil, the demand will automatically increase, the price will get better and the people in the palm oil mills can prosper,” he said.

The need for palm material for the needs of the food sector is also being developed. The production of vegetable cooking oil produced by European countries will not be able to keep up with the production of palm cooking oil. Palm oil can produce 3 to 4 times more than vegetable oil. Likewise, the cost of palm oil production is cheaper.

The results of research conducted on palm oil contain vitamin E and vitamin K. Vitamin E contains 8 antioxidants that function to protect the skin. Due to its vitamin content, the health industry uses palm oil to produce vitamins.

Palm oil ingredients for the consumer goods sector will continue to increase in the future. There are around 200 derivatives that can be processed to produce finished materials that are used daily from palm oil. Currently, there are still not many that have not been processed into finished materials. So it is still very wide open to be developed. Moreover, there are many palm materials in Indonesia.

The consumer goods sector, said Usli, continues to be in high demand as the population continues to grow and awareness of maintaining health increases.

“The positive value of the Covid-19 pandemic is that public awareness of maintaining cleanliness is getting better,” he said. (rin)

Source : Analisa