Indonesian demand for palm oil to use in biodiesel to grow 68 pct by 2020 -govt agency

NUSA DUA, Indonesia, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Indonesian demand for crude palm oil (CPO) for use in biodiesel is expected to grow 68 percent to 10.6 million tonnes by 2020 from a forecast 6.3 million tonnes this year, a government agency said on Friday.

"Looking forward, we calculated that by 2020, 26 percent of palm oil will go to biodiesel, so biodiesel becomes the new demand for the palm oil industry," Bayu Krisnamurthi, chief executive of the Indonesia Estate Crop Fund, said at a palm oil conference in Bali on Friday.

Indonesia is pushing to increase usage of biodiesel to cut its oil import bill and curb greenhouse gas emissions. Its so-called B20 programme requires a minimum 20 percent of bio content in diesel fuel this year, up from 15 percent in 2015.

(Reporting by Emily Chow; Writing by Fergus Jensen; Editing by Joseph Radford)