ASEAN urges Thai cooperation with Indonesia and Malaysia on biofuels
In Thailand, ASEAN is urging the nation to team up with Malaysia and Indonesia on biofuels to reduce its oil import bill. “We should get more serious about joint development of biofuels, as in the future the oil price will definitely increase,” Khunying Thongtip Ratnarat, former executive director of the Petroleum Institute of Thailand and one of the judges at Platt’s 2011 global energy awards told the Bangkok Post.
She said joint development will help strengthen the Asean Economic Community because “we can grow, blend, sell and consume it by ourselves.” However she was critical of the current palm oil price structure which she said was now distorted by political policy.
Thongtip is not alone in her support for biofuels and her concerns about the nation’s rising oil dependence. Thailand currently imports half its crude oil from the Middle East, a region increasingly destabilized by war and migration, and the country’s oil dependence is currently forecast to rise from the current 60% to 80% by 2030, consuming 8.5% of the nation’s total GDP.
Category: Research
