Indonesia curbs exports of used cooking oil (UCO) and palm oil mill effluent (POME) to help domestic market

In a statement, the government said the move was aimed at helping it attain a new mandate starting this year of mixing 40% palm oil-based fuel with diesel fuel (B40), up from the previous 35% mandate.

The new regulation, which took effect immediately, requires all exporters of UCO and palm oil residue, including palm oil mill effluent (POME), to acquire an export allocation from the government.

Although authorities in Indonesia had been looking into ways to curb UCO exports for some time, the extent of potential restrictions was unclear, the 8 January report said.

In December, an official alleged that some cooking oil sold under a government programme called ‘Minyakita’ had been mislabelled as UCO and shipped overseas as a biodiesel feedstock, media reports said.

Indonesia mandates all palm oil exporters to sell some of their crude palm oil domestically at a capped price to be made into Minyakita cooking oil, which is then sold at a regulated, affordable price.

Government officials had repeatedly said there were signs of scarcity of the Minyakita product, citing retailers’ sale of such items at about a tenth higher than the government’s maximum retail price.

From January-November 2024, Indonesia’s UCO and palm oil residue exports totalled 3.95M tonnes, down 13.75% from the same period the previous year, according to data from Statistics Indonesia.

Tags: exports, Indonesia, Crude palm oil, palm oil, UCO, palm oil mill effluent, used cooking oil, Minyakita