BP Australia to Provide More than Half of Country’s Target Biofuel Requirement by 2008
31 March 2006
BP Australia has signed two contracts and a Memorandum of Understanding to provide more than 200 million liters of biofuels to Australian consumers per annum by 2008—more than half of the Federal Government’s national target of 350 million liters.
BP is undertaking a number of actions to deliver on that promise. These include:
Investment to allow production at BP’s Bulwer Refinery in Queensland of 110 million liters per annum of synthetic diesel by an internally-developed technology that hydrogenates a tallow feedstock. (Similar in approach to that taken by Neste Oil with NExBTL—earlier post.)
The resulting bio-derived diesel will be blended into petroleum diesel at a 5% ratio to produce 2 billion liters of fuel which will be made available to the market from 2007. The biomass feedstock has been secured through a contract for supply of tallow from Colyer Fehr Tallow Pty Ltd.
A Memorandum of Understanding with Primary Energy Pty Ltd to purchase the entire output from a new ethanol plant to be constructed by Primary Energy in Kwinana, Western Australia. This would see the production of 80 million liters of ethanol per annum to be sold across Australia as E10 from 2008.
The ethanol produced at the new plant in Kwinana will use approximately 200,000 tonnes of Australian wheat as a feedstock. WA currently exports approximately six million tonnes of wheat. The Kwinana plant will also generate renewable electricity from biomass as an integral part of its process. Together, the renewable fuel and renewable electricity will result in a reduction in greenhouse gases to the order of 200,000 tonnes per annum.
A contract for purchase of 23 million liters of ethanol from CSR over 2 years. The ethanol will be purchased from CSR’s Sarina distillery near Mackay and blended to produce E10 that will be sold into the Queensland market later this year.
Good to see the Australians beginning to come around. Like the US, they had previously more or less disregarded the issue of climate change with respect to their energy sources, thanks largely to a powerful domestic coal lobby. Now that evidence of accelerating climate change is accumulating and, Iraq is unlikely to produce any extra oil for years to come, climate change and energy security issues have become closely linked.
Kudos to BP for making these investments. Like all oil majors, they must continously replenish their proven reserves or secure renewable sources to maintain their share price. This is an example of capitalism actually working to the benefit of the environment. Who else but the oil majors could pull this off in a short period of time?
Posted by: Rafael Seidl | 31 March 2006 at 01:42 AM
Interesting how only a couple of years ago 'experts' said the 350 ML target was unattainable. Next step is to raise the target a few times over. Also interesting is how some oil majors are going bio and others are not. I'm seeing parallels; Toyota outsells General Motors, BP outflanks Exxon Mobil.
Posted by: Aussie | 31 March 2006 at 02:11 AM
Not exactly. What is happening is tech managed to find a way. As soon as it did it becamse profitable to go bio and so they went bio. If not for those tech breakthroughts no manner of law would have pushed em to make the plants faster.
As for bp vs exxon. Exxon is doing very well indeed so is bp so they were both right to take the courses they took.
Exxon has stated they wont jump to a new fuel untll its profitable WITHOUT gov subsidies. I think thats a wise choice for THEM as they are soo huge counting on subs even for bio would be unwise.
Posted by: wintermane | 31 March 2006 at 05:35 AM
So the moral of the story is only buy from BP...
Posted by: Dave | 31 March 2006 at 06:40 AM
Who else but the oil majors could pull this off in a short period of time? -- Rafael Seidl
With the exception of Exxon, they have long seen the writing on the wall. BP and Shell were the first to move, though.
Exxon has stated they wont jump to a new fuel untll its profitable WITHOUT gov subsidies. I think thats a wise choice for THEM as they are soo huge counting on subs even for bio would be unwise. -- wintermane
Sure doesn't stop them from taking petroleum subsidies, though.
Posted by: d | 31 March 2006 at 03:43 PM