Kia Netherlands owners to support Mali biodiesel program with voluntary carbon offset program

In Mali, Mali Biocarburant will receive investment support from Kia automobile owners in the Netherlands, under a private, voluntary carbon tax program supported by Kia. New car buyers will pay between 15 and 85 euros on a voluntary basis for carbon offsets, which will support jatropha planting in Mali to provide feedstock for the Mali Biocarburant plant. The program is managed by Trees for Travel, which expects to plant more than 1.5 million jatropha trees under the program. Mali Biocarburant is backed by the Netherlands government, the Royal Dutch Tropical Institute, the Dutch Railway pension fund, and a local Mali farmer’s union.

Mali Biocarburant has become the first jatropha biodiesel company to commence production in Africa. The company buys jatropha nuts from farmers who have planted 20,000 km of jatropha fences in Mali that protect crops and limit soil erosion. The company did not release details on the volume of jatropha nuts it planned to obtain.

D1Oils and Sun Biofuels are offering seeds and technical assistance to farmers in several countries in return for production contracts. D1 has a $90 million joint venture with BP, and has 338,000 acres under jatropha production with plans to plant more than 80,000 acres in Swaziland, Zambia, Madagascar, Mali and Malawi. The company recently signed with Keygene to obtain exclusive rights to Keygene’s applied jatropha research.

Jatropha seeds yield up to 40 percent oil and waste matter is sold as fertilizer. However, with current yields of 1.7 tonnes of oil per acre, jatropha lags behind the 4 tonnes per acre realized from palm oil.

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