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The Biomethane Market in Southeast Asia:
Still Early, But the Buyers Are Real

6 min read · Sep 19, 2025 · By Alex

Investors sometimes ask me whether biomethane in this region is a real market yet or just a pipeline of individual plant announcements. The honest picture is somewhere in between: the regional capacity is still tiny relative to ambition, but there are named corporate buyers already signing long-term agreements elsewhere in Asia, and specific infrastructure projects are now moving in Southeast Asia itself.

In short: Asia’s biomethane market today is small, roughly 1.2 TWh per year of installed capacity according to ENGIE, against a 2030 target of 10 TWh per year. Southeast Asia specifically is still building its foundational infrastructure, feedstock supply, certification, and long-term demand all need to mature together, but concrete projects like Gas Malaysia’s new purification plants and Indonesia’s first bio-CNG co-firing show the market moving from ambition to execution.

Where the demand side actually stands

Jules Dufournier, ENGIE’s Vice President for Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, has been explicit about how ENGIE sees biomethane’s role: a complement to hydrogen and ammonia, not a substitute, valuable specifically because it can use existing gas infrastructure while cutting emissions. ENGIE already has long-term supply agreements with industrial customers including Arkema, Sanofi, PepsiCo, and BASF, real corporate names with real decarbonization commitments, even if most of that contracted volume today sits outside Southeast Asia specifically.

Dufournier’s framing of what a successful biomethane market needs is worth internalizing: trusted certification, transparent pricing, reliable supply chains, and bankable contracts. That’s not a list of nice-to-haves, it’s the actual checklist determining whether a given country’s biomethane sector moves from announcement to transaction.

What's actually moving in Southeast Asia right now

Gas Malaysia awarded contracts to two Malaysian firms to build two biomethane purification plants in Perak, moving from upgrading concept to actual procured infrastructure.
PLN, Indonesia’s state utility, commissioned the country’s first co-firing of bio-compressed natural gas at its Belawan plant, using POME biogas sourced from North Sumatra, a direct link between the palm oil feedstock base covered elsewhere in this region’s biogas conversation and an actual grid-connected power plant.

These are small, specific, operational projects, not regional market statistics. That’s actually the right scale to be watching at this stage: a market this early is defined by which individual projects clear the infrastructure and offtake bar, not by top-down capacity forecasts.

Why Asia is roughly a decade behind Europe, and why that's an opportunity

Dufournier draws a direct comparison: Europe has spent more than a decade building out biomethane integration, while Asia is still building its foundations. He also compares biomethane’s likely cost trajectory to solar’s, which became far cheaper within about a decade through innovation, investment, and scale. For a developer, that comparison cuts both ways: it means the region is genuinely early-stage with real execution risk, but it also means the cost curve that eventually made European biomethane commercially mainstream hasn’t finished playing out here yet.

Within the region, Singapore’s role is distinct from a production hub: Dufournier sees it as a demand center, trading hub, and regulatory leader, leveraging its existing LNG trading ecosystem, financing capability, and certification experience, rather than as a major domestic biomethane producer itself.

Where this breaks in practice

Pricing a regional opportunity off Asia-wide targets rather than country-specific execution. The 10 TWh by 2030 target is directional for Asia broadly; a developer in a specific Southeast Asian market needs to assess that country’s own feedstock, certification, and infrastructure maturity independently.
Assuming corporate offtake demand like ENGIE’s Arkema/Sanofi/PepsiCo/BASF agreements is immediately available in Southeast Asia. Those contracts demonstrate genuine corporate appetite for biomethane, but the supply chains behind them aren’t automatically transferable to a new Southeast Asian project without its own certification and logistics in place.
Underestimating how much market-making work is still needed. ENGIE’s own stated ambition is to help build the commercial ecosystem itself, not just supply gas, which tells you the pricing mechanisms and risk management tools this market needs are still being built, not already standard.

A practical method for assessing a biomethane market opportunity

Evaluate your specific country’s certification and pricing infrastructure independently of regional targets, since maturity varies significantly by market.
Identify whether your target buyers are local or regional corporates with existing decarbonization commitments, similar to ENGIE’s industrial customer base, versus buyers who have not yet made that commitment.
Look to small, operational project precedents like Gas Malaysia’s purification plants or PLN’s Belawan co-firing as the realistic benchmark for what’s achievable now, not the 2030 regional target.
Factor in a market-building timeline, not just a construction timeline, since bankable contracts and transparent pricing mechanisms are still being established in most of the region.

Common mistakes I see developers and investors make

Citing Asia-wide capacity targets as if they describe a specific Southeast Asian country’s near-term opportunity.
Assuming an existing corporate offtake relationship elsewhere in Asia automatically extends to a new Southeast Asian supply source.
Underestimating the time needed to establish trusted certification and pricing mechanisms in a given market.
Overlooking small, already-operational projects as the most realistic signal of what’s achievable now.

A quick checklist before you take this to lenders

A country-specific assessment of certification and pricing infrastructure maturity
Confirmed buyer interest independent of other markets’ offtake agreements
A realistic view of comparable, already-operational regional projects rather than aggregate targets
A timeline that accounts for market infrastructure development, not just plant construction

Sources

S&P Global, Interview: Biomethane to play pivotal role in Asia energy transition: ENGIE
Quantum Commodity Intelligence, Indonesia’s PLN Tests Bio-CNG Co-Firing at Belawan Gas Power Plant (2025)

FAQ

How big is the biomethane market in Asia today?

ENGIE estimates about 1.2 TWh per year of installed biomethane capacity across Asia currently, against a stated target of 10 TWh per year by 2030. That’s a roughly eight-fold growth ambition over a relatively short period, which gives a sense of how early-stage the market still is.

What role does Singapore play if it's not a major biomethane producer?

ENGIE’s own view positions Singapore as a demand center, trading hub, and regulatory leader for the region, drawing on its existing LNG trading infrastructure, financing capability, and certification experience, rather than as a domestic production hub.

What concrete biomethane projects are actually happening in Southeast Asia right now?

Gas Malaysia has awarded contracts for two biomethane purification plants in Perak, and Indonesia’s state utility PLN has commissioned the country’s first co-firing of bio-compressed natural gas at its Belawan plant using palm oil mill effluent biogas from North Sumatra. These are smaller-scale, but genuinely operational, signals compared to regional capacity targets.

If you’re trying to work out whether a biomethane opportunity in your target market is close to bankable or still waiting on market infrastructure to mature, that’s exactly the kind of question I help developers and investors think through. Get in touch and we can look at your specific market together.

I’m part of the WeConnect Asia team, working with developers and investors on low-carbon infrastructure projects across Southeast Asia.

This article is for general informational purposes and does not constitute financial, legal, or engineering advice. Figures cited are drawn from publicly reported data and should be independently verified before use in any financial model.

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