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GOVT EYEING JATROPHA OIL FOR BIODIESEL PRODUCTION 14/05/2008 (Bernama), Kuala Lumpur - The government is looking at the possibility of using jatropha oil as a raw material for the production of biodiesel in the future, Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui said. However, this is still at the research and development stage and it has not reached the commercialisation stage yet, he said. The current use of palm oil and other vegetable oils as fuel has raised differing views as well as competition on their use as fuel or food sources, he said. Against this backdrop, the world's efforts are now being concentrated on using non-food based raw materials for the production of biofuel, he said in reply to a question from Liang Teck Meng (BN- Simpang Renggam) at the Question and Answer session at the Dewan Rakyat sitting here Wednesday. Chin said the biodiesel projects in Malaysia at the moment were based on the use of oil palm as the raw material. He explained that the production of biodiesel from waste materials including from oil palm was still at the early stage of research and development. The initial research has shown that the production of biodiesel from waste materials was still very high and not viable yet for commercialisation. On the current state of the country's biodiesel projects, Chin said about 91 percent of the projects had been approved with a total production capacity of 10.2 million tonnes a year. From this amount, a total of 12 biodiesel plants have been fully completed and are in operation with a production capacity of one million tonnes a year. Another two biodiesel plants have been also completed but they are yet to start operations. The production capacity of these two plants will be 160,000 tonnes a year, he said. Chin said that the production of the biodiesel plants already in operation was 196,363 tonnes for the period August 2006 to March this year, while the export of biodiesel for the period was 154,791 tonnes valued at RM411 million with the export markets being the US, Europe, Singapore and Australia. However, the cost of production at the biodiesel plants have gone up now with the rising price of crude palm oil, he added. The average cost of CPO in 2006 was RM1,502.50 per tonne and this shot up to RM2,516.50 last year, while from January to March this year, the average price of CPO had soared to RM3,433.50 per tonne. In March this year, the cost of producing oil palm based biodiesel was RM4,330 per tonne compared with the market price of RM3,632 per tonne for the fuel. Therefore, a big number of biodiesel producers have temporarily stopped producing biodiesel as the increased cost of production has negatively impacted their profit margin and the viability of the country's biodiesel industry, he said. 14/05/2008 (Bernama) .

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