Jakarta –
The government plans to downstream the industry, one of which is through changes in use LPG (Liquified Petroleum Gas) which is currently used for household needs, becomes DME or coal gasification (Dimethyl Ether).
Investment Minister/Head of the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) Bahlil Lahadalia said the investment project, which will start in January 2022, will be carried out by Air Products and Chemicals with Pertamina and several other companies.
“It will be January 2022, Pertamina with PTBA (PT Bukit Asam) and Air Products with national entrepreneurs build DME. Air Products invests with several of our state-owned companies and national private companies to do downstream in order to get a substitute for LPG from coal, namely DME,” Bahlil said in a virtual press conference yesterday, quoted Friday (12/11/2021).
In addition to industrial downstreaming, the DME project will also reduce LPG imports. Bahlil noted that LPG imports per year reached 5.5 to 6 million.
“This is our foreign exchange reserves if we continue like this. It is not less than Rp. 55-70 trillion. So we will slowly reduce our LPG imports and we will replace them with DME,” he explained.
Then what is DME like?
The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Director General of Oil and Gas, in his official website explained that the characteristics of DME have similarities both in chemical and physical properties with LPG.
With the same characteristics, DME can use the existing LPG infrastructure, such as tubes, storage and existing handling. This means that even though it will be replaced with DME later, it is very likely that the components used in LPG can still be reused.
DME also has another advantage that it can be produced from various energy sources, including renewable materials. These include biomass, waste and Coal Bed Methane (CBM). However, at present, low calorie coal is considered as the most ideal raw material for DME development.
(fdl/fdl)
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