|
Vietnam to develop biofuels, government says
Vietnam has an “urgent need” to develop biofuels to meet its energy demands, Deputy Minister of Sciences and Technology Nguyen Van Lang said this week.
The country is placing a high priority on investment and exploitation of agricultural waste and its by-products, Lang said at biofuel conference in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday, according to a statement posted on the government’s website Wednesday.
The program for developing biofuel may curb Vietnam’s imports of oil and help reduce a trade deficit that has widened by 87 percent in the nine months to September from the same period a year earlier.
Vietnam plans to produce 100,000 tons of 5 percent ethanol blend and 50,000 tons of 5 percent biodiesel blend a year by 2010, meeting 0.4 percent of fuel demand, the statement said.
The country currently has five biofuel plant projects under construction. Three, including an US$85 million-plant by Vietnam Oil & Gas Group, known as PetroVietnam, will start producing 240 million liters of 99.7 percent ethanol annually next year, the statement said.
The plants will use cassava and sugarcane as feedstock.
From 2010, the country will produce another 200 million liters of biofuel per year from another $85 million PetroVietnam plant, and PetroVietnam General Services Joint-Stock Company’s joint venture with Japan’s Itochu Corp., according to the statement.
Lang said the government would also consider importing biofuel as part of efforts to introduce the products to consumers.
Last month PetroVietnam's oil trading arm PV Oil began selling ethanol to motorists on a trial basis in Hanoi but the sales were suspended shortly after as the government said it needed to establish fuel standard specifications before ethanol goes to consumers.
Last year Hanoi endorsed a project to produce 250,000 tons of ethanol per year by 2015 to meet 1 percent of the country's petrol demand as it sought to cope with high energy costs.
Thanhnien
|
