Peru will have 40,000 hectares of oil palm to produce biodiesel in 2010

By: Johan van Ginhoven

These 40,000 hectares of oil palm during 2010 will serve to obtain the raw material needed to produce biodiesel that should be mixed with diesel. This should permit the local biodiesel industry to produce the needed biofuel required to comply with the mandatory mix of 5% starting in 2011.

Ronald Campbell, general manager of Palmas del Espino, explained his company has 8,000 hectares of oil palm in production to produce close to 50,000 tons per year of crude palm oil, a raw material that is used food products (oils, margarine, butters) as well as biodiesel. He said that the actual limit of 2% mix with diesel fuel, the local market demands approximately 200 tons of biodiesel per day, and if the limit goes up to 5%, 525 tons per day would be required.

“With just 13,000 hectares we could comply with the 2% goal and with 32,000 hectares would reach 5%. At present in Peru, there are over 17,000 hectares in productive stage and next year there will be 40,000 hectares”, he said.
Hence, he asked the Energy and Mining Ministry (MEM) not to delay the mandate of increasing the biodiesel content up to 5%.

On the other hand, the company has asked Indecopi, the authority involved in competition and intellectual property, to start an investigation conducive to the establishment of compensatory import and antidumping duties to biodiesel imported from Argentina and the US; this should be resolved by the authority in the next few days. Actually, this has put a brake in all company plans for growth in sown fields as well as return on investment.

Photo: Ecología blog.com

Tags Blogalaxia: Economy, Peru, Oil Palm, Biodiesel.

Compártelo:      

Artículos Relacionados