The excitement for bio-fuel has somewhat evaporated in major producers like Malaysia as crude oil, which peaked at 147 dollars in July 2008, fell to current levels below 37 dollars.
But, Fiji’s Department of Energy bio-fuel engineer Vilimone Vosarogo said ethanol is the only sustainable solution to Fiji’s fuel crisis, echoing the determination of the local administration to get the ethanol industry off the ground.
Vosarogo expects the global fuel price to soar again given the evidence of depleting oil reserves all over the world.
“Low fossil fuel price will not last long and the price will rise this year to unprecedented levels given the level of economic developments around the world, coupled with reducing availability of fuel at source,” he said.
“Ethanol is not dead in Fiji; this is the most viable project in this country. It can be done and we are doing it now.”
South Pacific Distilleries and Fiji Sugar Corp. are among local companies that have been producing bio-fuel, albeit on a small scale.
“We have vast amounts of land and human resources, small population and easy access to technology and funding transfer from countries like China, and to a lesser extent, Australia and New Zealand,” Vosarogo said.
Vosarogo said a team from China would be heading for Fiji’s Northern Division to help establish mills for production of bio-fuel from cassava.
He said the global trend now was to vigorously pursue bio-fuel developments but the essential components were land availability, appropriate technology, enabling investment environment, locally available market, and weather conditions conducive to good energy cropping results.
Infrastructure like good roads, telecom access and power source, he said was available where ethanol plants were planned for set up.
In February last year, a group of Chinese investors had considered setting up a F$40 million plant to produce ethanol from cassava.
In Southeast Asia, hopes of a biofuel bonanza, raised when sky-high oil prices made the search for alternative fuels a priority, but these have been shelved as global fortunes and crude prices nose-dive, according to AFP.
Malaysia, which along with Indonesia, produce most of the world’s palm oil, says it will now review 91 biofuel plant licenses issued during the sector’s heyday, as the majority are not operating.
“You see, we have been hit by the double whammy of low palm oil prices and low crude oil prices,” Deputy Plantations and Commodities Minister Kohilan Pillay told AFP.
“The situation now is very low palm oil prices that have caused uncertainty in supply, and at the same time low crude oil prices that have reduced biofuel demand, and that is bad news,” he said.
Back in 2006, Malaysia was aiming to be the global leader in biodiesel production, and launched the Asian region’s first commercial biodiesel plant.
It was propelled by strong demand for biodiesel from Europe and as far afield as Colombia, India, South Korea and Turkey, but these days it has fallen back on domestic demand, mostly from the government sector.
“With such low prices in palm and crude oil, local producers have effectively shut down most of their biofuel production as the only demand going forward at the moment is coming from the domestic market,” said Khoo Hock Aun, managing director of regional biotech company Cosmo Biofuels.
