Jakarta. State-owned oil company Pertamina successfully tested a new jet fuel product with a tiny blend of biofuel in a short-distance flight from Jakarta to Bandung on Wednesday.

A CN-235 propeller aircraft manufactured by Dirgantara Indonesia functioned as a testbed aircraft to fly using Pertamina’s aviation biofuel product.

“We made history today by conducting the first flight of a CN-235 aircraft using Bioavtur, which has a 2.4 percent blend of aviation biofuel, from Jakarta to Bandung,” Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Arifin Tasrif said in Jakarta.

Bioavtur is developed by Pertamina and the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) who use a mixture of palm kernel oil and kerosene.

It was the first time that Bioavtur or J2.4 is used to power aircraft engines in an actual flight.

According to a ministerial regulation issued in 2015, the government aims to reach a 5 percent blend of biofuel in aviation fuels by 2025.

Nicke Widyawati, Pertamina’s president director, said Bioavtur will enter production scale at the company’s major oil refinery in the Central Java town of Cilacap, which has a capacity of 8,000 barrels per day.

She said the test results indicated that there is hardly any difference between Bioavtur and fossil fuels.