In Front of Japanese Businessmen, Prabowo Targets Indonesia to Implement B50 This Year

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - President Prabowo Subianto has targeted increasing the blend of Vegetable Fuel (VF) biodiesel to 50% (B50) this year.

Prabowo made this statement while attending the Indonesia-Japan Business Forum held at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo on Monday (30/3/2026).

“This year, we will produce diesel oil from palm oil, and now (we are) increasing the production of diesel oil from palm oil from 40% to 50%,” said Prabowo, quoted from the YouTube broadcast of the Presidential Secretariat on Tuesday (31/3/2026).

In addition to biodiesel, Prabowo also affirmed his commitment to developing bioethanol as a gasoline fuel blend. This includes biofuels from cassava, sugar, and corn.

Prabowo revealed that Indonesia’s energy transformation does not stop there.

Indonesia plans to pursue an ambitious target of building Solar Power Plants (SPP) with a capacity of up to 100 Gigawatts (GW) within a three-year period.

Furthermore, transforming petrol-fuelled vehicles into electric-based ones. This is considering that there are still around 114 million motorbikes dependent on fuel oil.

He claimed that this plan can be realised given Indonesia’s vast natural resources that can be utilised.

“This is one of the things that is expected to change very quickly with the transformation to electric vehicles, so we will have a strong defence against global supply uncertainties,” he stated.

Furthermore, Prabowo conveyed that this plan is increasingly urgent given the increasingly uncertain geopolitical conditions. One of them is when war rages in the Middle East and hampers the world’s oil routes.