Indonesia to rank among world's fifth largest economies in 2030: ICW

Jakarta, March 17 (Antara) - Indonesia is predicted to break into the ranks of world's five largest economies in Gross Domestic Product in 2030 . If Indonesia could maintain strong economic fundamental and steady economic growth, the country could even climb to the fourth largest in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in 2050, Price Waterhouse Cooper, a multinational service networks said. One of the main factors to maintain the country's economic growth is the availability of energy, PWC said in a report. Self reliance in energy supply would be a homework for the country for the coming years as its consumption of oil fuels is growing from year to year to follow the expanding economy and growing population, it said. Meanwhile, the country's oil reserve is dwindling fast resulting in shrinking production and growing dependence on imports for oil fuel . Arifin Panigoro, the owner of the Medco Group, said in the next 10 years the country's national energy requirement would reach 7.7 million barrels oil equivalent per day and 2 million barrels of which would be in BBM . Arifin said the prediction is based on the program launched by the government to develop alternative energy such as geothermal. If the program failed the BBM requirement in 2025 would rise to 3 million barrels per day, he estimated. "If in 2014, the country's crude oil production was only 794,000 barrels per day , the production is expected to shrink to only 453,000 barrels per day in 2025," he said There are a number of factors causing the decline, he said, citing, the country's oil reserves at present are only around 3.7 billion barrels. "Unfortunately is that in order to increase the reserve explorations would be needed but explorations would need large investment and not many investors would risk spending large fund amid the falling price of oil," he said. Developing 'Green Diesel' Arifin said with growing consumption, falling production and shrinking reserve of fossil fuel, it is time for Indonesia to be more serious in developing alternative sources of energy especially renewable energy. Biodiesel should be the first in priority for development in order to achieve self sufficiency in energy supply. Apart from the availability of technology and abundant basic material, biodiesel is environmentally friendlier. Aripin said among the various biodiesel alternatives CPO-based 'green diesel' could be the right and most efficient choice on a number of factors. "First, CPO-based 'green diesel' would be the best solution to problem in the program of self sufficiency in energy," he said . The country is the world's largest producer of crude palm oil producing around 30 million tons of the commodity a year and accounting for 47 percent of the world's CPO market. Second, green diesel is better in quality, he said in a discussion on 'planting seeds of self reliance' here last weekend. The biorefinery technology could produce the best quality green diesel through hydrogenation process without blending through hydrocracking technology, he said. Third, is that "biorefinery" could be built in small to large scale in all provinces, he said. "Currently green diesel refineries could be built in small scale with a capacity of 400 barrels per day up to a large scale with a capacity of 100,000 barrels per day," he said. Therefore, biorefineries to produce green diesel is more practical as they could be built in wide areas , he said . He said in short term implementation of green diesel program would be beneficial with additional production of renewable fuel by 30 percent, additional sustainable reserves of 30 percent and BBM import cut of 30 percent. Government support Meanwhile, according to Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said , the government will be serious in carrying out development of vegetable-based renewable energy. "The program of development of vegetable-based renewable energy is one of our working focuses. We hope production of biofuel could reach 1.57 million kiloliters this year," Sudirman said He said President Joko Widodo had also suggested the use of one million hectares of idle lands for 'energy plantation' to produce basic material for green diesel. He said extraordinary support from the government, the private sector as well from farmers, is needed to accelerate the green diesel development program. "Development of energy plantations would need supporting policy or affirmative policy from the government in the form of regulation on conversion of non productive lands, involvement of the younger generation as the leaders in energy plantations, financial inclusion" and "off-taker" for the production from "green diesel" among state company such as Pertamina or PLN," he said.