Bioethanol Plant for Indonesia

The cassava processing industry in Indonesia is a very profitable business. Aside from the major starch product,  the by-products can be used to manufacture other useful products. PT Budi Acid Jaya Tbk (BUDI) is one of the companies focusing on the production of cassava or tapioca starch in Indonesia. To take advantage of tapioca's by-product called 'onggok', the company uses it to produce higher value-added product such as citric acid.

With the country’s focus on biofuels, the company has planned to build a cassava-based bioethanol manufacturing plant with a capacity of 75,000 kilo liters. The plant costing US$43 million will be located in Lampung, Indonesia. Deputy President Director of BUDI, Sudarmo Tasmin, said that the development plan was a response to the promising prospect of renewable energy business and the soaring oil price which now exceeds more than US$ 100 per barel. The establishment of the plant is being conducted in collaboration with a Japanese company, to which 50% of the produced bioethanol will be sold.

For details see http://www.suarapembaruan.com/last/index.html or http://www.budiacidjaya.co.id/ for more information about the company; and Dewi Suryani at dewisuryani@biotrop.org for information on biotechnology in Indonesia