S. Africa to develop biofuel
South Africa plans to develop its biofuel industry with aims to make biofuels contributing up to three-quarters of its renewable energy needs in near future.
The country's Cabinet has approved a draft industrial strategy for biofuel, which will focus on using excess crop production and expanding the use of underutilized arable land, the government spokesman Themba Maseko said on Thursday.
"Cabinet noted the country has the potential to produce biofuels which could contribute up to 75 percent of our renewable energy by 2013, without negatively impacting on food security or requiring excessive support," he told a press briefing in Pretoria.
He said the capital investment required would be about 6 billion rand (845 million U.S. dollars). Meanwhile the biofuels industry has the potential to create 55,000 agricultural jobs in South Africa.
Biofuels made from crops such as maize, sunflowers and sugarcane are thought to provide a cleaner, sustainable and environment-friendly alternative to fossil fuels, 60 percent of which consumed in South Africa are imported.
Brazil is currently the world's leading producer of bio-ethanol, contributing slightly less than half the world's total, followed by the United States, according to the 2006 Biofuel Market Worldwide report.
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With edible oil sources going in fuel tanks, what would people consume?
By Shahzad Anwar
KARACHI: Despite the fact that Pakistan has an agrarian economy it is unable to produce sufficient quantity of edible oil to meet its domestic requirements.
Pakistan is the fourth largest consumer of vegetable oil in the world with annual domestic demand of 2.5 million tonnes. The country imports 1.3 million tonnes of edible oil from Malaysia and Indonesia in form of RBD Palm and Olein and around $1 billion are spent on the import of edible oils including palm and soybean oil annually.
The use of vegetable oil as a substitute for diesel fuel has already driven up the prices of palm and canola at international market, which is evident from recent price surge of $100 per tonne of palm oil in a short span of time. It would not be an exaggeration to say that non-food use of crops and increased use of bio-fuels may further augment the starvation of the deprived people in the world.
No one can exactly guess that farmers would be able to meet the rising demand for palm, soybean, corn and canola generated by increase in production of bio-diesel and ethanol across the globe.
In November prices of crude palm oil surged to $575 per tonne as compared to $475 per tonne in the preceding month, which also flared up prices of edible oil and ghee in local market where 16 kg tin of edible oil and ghee is being priced at Rs950.
“The competition between supermarket and corner filling stations is increasing in the world particularly in western countries, and farms can not feed people and their vehicles at a time which ultimately make more to go hungry,” Professor Ishaq Head of Economics Department at local university said.
He said that government should evolve alternate means to meet domestic needs of edible oil otherwise coming year could bring harsh consequences because annual import of edible oil is increasing by 7 percent due to population growth and improving economic conditions.
Country’s 70 percent edible oil requirements are met through import of which 90 percent consists of palm oil. According to estimates the total size of edible oil and ghee industry in Pakistan is around Rs90 billion which could be catered by increasing and producing alternative sources including sunflower, olive, rapeseed, cottonseed and other oilseed crops with an effective medium and long term planning.
Currently country’s major indigenous source of edible oil is cottonseed, rapeseed, sunflower and canola and oilseed crops are cultivated over an area of 0.5 million acres which could be doubled easily in a short period.
The import duty on palm oil is around 9,500 per tonnes and market sources expected that import of palm oil was likely to increase by 15 percent due to the lower than expected yield of cottonseed in the country.
The country imported 337,629 tonnes palm oil in first quarter 2006 (July-Sept) to $150.99 million. In September around 136,200 tonnes of edible oil was imported from Malaysia and the oil imports would further increase in October-December due to increased demand, market sources said.
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