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Philippines in $1.3 Billion Biofuel Deal
23 May 2007
Sun Star. The alternative fuels division of state-owned Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC) has signed a US$1.3 billion (€966 million) deal with UK-based NRG Chemical Engineering Pte. to establish a joint venture to build a biodiesel refinery, a jatropha plantation, and two ethanol plants.
NRG Chemical will own a 70% stake in the joint venture and provide the bulk of the equity requirement in building a biodiesel refinery, two ethanol plants and a million-hectare (2.4 million-acre) jatropha plantation. PNOC-AFC will own 30% of the project.
The refinery, expected to be in operation by early 2008, will have an initial capacity of at least 350,000 metric tons a year (about 106 million gallons US), with a projected ramp to 3.5 million tons a year.
The refinery will initially use coconut and vegetable oil as feedstock until the planned jatropha plantation can start commercial production.
May 23, 2007 in Brief | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted by: Mark | May 23, 2007 at 12:31 PM
A million hectares is small potatoes compared to what's being planned in China, where the Government has announced a plan to convert 13 million hectares to Jatropha production for biodiesel by 1010 (see http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/IE23Cb02.html). While the impact of land conversion for biofuels production is a legitimate environmental and conservation concern, the much bigger worry environmentally is the combination of climate change and globalization -- which are both driving and unprecedented movement and mixing of the globes formerly separated biological systems. We have no clue what this will mean -- other than it is predetermined that we will continue to lose species at an unprecedented and what should be very alarming rate. Check out the scenarios done by the Wildlife Conservation Society at http://www.bio-era.net.
Posted by: Steve | May 23, 2007 at 01:47 PM
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...a million-hectare (2.4 million-acre) jatropha plantation???
I hope they won't be clearing Biodiverse jungle habitat to grow this resource.
Biofuels are only part of the solution I hope we don't live to regret their success.