Cyprus to Establish Biofuels Requirement

26 July 2005

Simerini. Cyprus’s Commerce Ministry is poised to announce a pilot project to introduce biofuels in an attempt to cut down on the cost of petroleum imports and the emissions from fossil-fuel use.

Georgios Roditis, from the Applied Energy Centre of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, said that island will set an initial biofuels target of one percent (6,000 metric tons, or approximately 2.16 million gallons US) of annual transport fuel consumption.

There will be an initial focus on ethanol derived from grapes and grape residues from the Cypriot wineries, as well as from grain, potatoes and other fruits. Cyprus will also investigate cultivating oil-seed crops for biodiesel production.

With a population of 780,000 and an area about 0.6 times the size of the state of Connecticut, Cyprus consumes the least energy of any of the EU countries. Fully 98.7% of Cyprus’s energy came from oil in 2003, according to the EIA, with the remaining 1.3% from coal.