Indonesia Taps Palm Oil Effluent for Biogas Potential

Indonesia's palm oil industry is looking to turn its Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) into biogas, according to statements made on August 17, 2026. The country, which produces a significant portion of the world's palm oil, has been storing POME in open ponds, releasing methane into the atmosphere.

The scale of Indonesia's available effluent pool is directly tied to the size of its national production base. The total planted area of oil palm plantations and the annual volume of fresh fruit bunches processed determine the national volume of effluent available for conversion into biogas.

Researchers estimate that converting POME into biogas could deliver a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, with an order-of-magnitude reduction figure cited per installation. The purified gas could also be valorized as bio-CNG, a biologically derived compressed natural gas usable as vehicle fuel or domestic gas.