BioEnergy signs first jatropha future delivery contract with Van Der Horst for Indian plantations

In Singapore, Bio Energy Plantations announced the signing of an off-take MOU for oil from its 6,000 hectare jatropha plantations in India. The company said it will partner with with Van Der Horst Biodiesel in what it called the first jatropha futures contract. The company currently has a 20 hectare nursery and R&D facility in place.

Jatropha background

• In Malawi, the government said that the country is on track to commence biodiesel production in 2009 from several jatropha projects underway throughout the country. The government also said that the Department of Science and Technology and Lilongwe Technical College are developing engine modifications that will allow conversion of cars to E100 sugarcane ethanol, with initial tests scheduled to be complete by mid-2009.

• In England, De-Ord Fuel opened a new 100,000 GPY biodiesel facility in Mansfield that will use jatropha and waste vegetable oil as feedstocks. The company will distribute fuel to bus and truck fleets. The $550,000 project is one of the first of a wave of micro-facilities that will utilize sustainable feedstocks in Europe.

• Recently D1 Oils officially announced that it would close its rapeseed oil biodiesel plant in Teesside and lay off 40 workers until it could sell the plant. The company said that it would close plants in Middlesbrough and Merseyside that are unable to compete with US imports and concentrate on development of its 500,000 acres of jatropha in Africa and India. The jatropha is planted in partnership with BP, and will begin yielding jatropha oil later this year with full scale production by 2011

• In Myanmar, “Biofuel by Decree: Unmasking Burma’s bio-energy fiasco,” was released by the Ethnic Community Development Forum, detailing the use of forced labor and land confiscation to plant 8 million acres with jatropha to provide a solution to Myanmar’s fuel crisis. The report, based on government documents, media reports, and 131 interviews conducted in Myanmar between November 2006 and April 2008. The report said that individuals “have been fined, beaten, and arrested for not participating.” The plan has been plagued with mismanagement by the army soldiers supervising the work. “The soldiers carry guns. They don’t know anything about agriculture,” said a farmer in the report.

• The first national jatropha crops were ready for harvest this month, with up to 7 million acres planted by small farmers, after a national directive in 2006 that all farmers with more than 1 acre of land had to plant a minimum of 200 jatropha seeds to establish a hedge around their landholdings. The ruling junta developed the plan in light of soaring oil import costs, and the biggest anti-junta protests since the 1980s which erupted last year over cuts in diesel subsidies

• In California, Allegro Biodiesel has commenced processing of jatropha oil into biodiesel on a test basis.

• China’s largest state oil company, Sinopec, said it will invest $5 billion in jatropha and palm plantations in Indonesia.

• In the United Arab Emirates, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi announced an $15 billion investment project in renewables, managed by Masdar. Masdar’s major initiative in bio-fuels is focused on jatropha and other arid climate crops.

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