ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / 09 Nov) - Filipino leader Gloria Arroyo announced that Manila is allocating a first series of funds worth 1 billion pesos (€15.7/US$ 20 mio) aimed at achieving energy independence through biofuels.
Earlier the Biopact.com reported about the Sino-Philippine cooperation on ethanol and Manila's new legislation on biofuels that was recently approved. The Philippines currently produces only 14,500 bpd itself, making up its fuel needs by importing 340,000bpd.
Biofuels investments are aimed at breaking this oil dependence, which is a heavy burden on the developing country.The funds are allocated via the state-owned Philippine National Oil Company - Alternative Fuels Corporation (PNOC-AFC) and the National Development Company (NDC) who each contribute and manage half.
Cabinet secretary Ricardo Saludo sketches some aspects of program:
Investments go into land for marginalized landless farmers, the poorest of the country, who will benefit from the opportunity to grow sugar cane, cassava, maize, soybean and jatropha - biofuel feedstocks.
In coordination with the Philippine Forest Council, a special effort will be made on cultivating 'tuba tuba' (a local jatropha variant), that thrives well on degraded land and can reduce erosion and desertification.
The projected hectarage of the crop under a first financing round is 700,000 hectares, aimed at supplying oil to a 1 million tonne (50,000 bpd) biodiesel refinery to be operated by the PNOC-AFC the bulk of the biofuel plantations will be located in Mindanao, the country's poorest province, where refineries with a capacity of 60,000 to 240,000 tonnes will be built at the center of growing areas with a hectarage of 30,000 to 120,000 hectares respectively a biofuels terminal and port will be built at an as yet undisclosed location.
A 107-hectare experimental tuba-tuba plantation in Magsaysay (Nueva Ecija province outside Manila) managed by the Philippine Forest Council sheds some light on the economics of growing jatropha: even though seed oil yields from current plants are lower than the literature generally assumes (28% instead of 45%), over a period of 10 years a jatropha plantation brings a return of 35 to 40%, and an average income of 38,000 to 40,000 pesos (€596-627/ US$761-801).
For the many farmers in Mindanao who earn less than one dollar per day, managing a few hectares of energy crops would thus mean a considerable boost to their income.
The Biopact is a Brussels-based connective of European and African citizens who strive towards the establishment of a mutually beneficial 'energy relationship' based on biofuels and bioenergy.
Biopact is an entirely volunteer effort, but the young organisation said it is working towards formalisation under a non-profit structure because of growing interest in its activities and its vision.
The group's main activities currently consist of building a web presence, delivering basic consulting services to the media and to bioenergy projects in the South, and of networking with other organisations.
Biopact unites specialists in several disciplines related to bioenergy seen in the broader context of development and trade: an economic anthropologist, a bio-engineer, a professor in chemistry, a tropical agronomist, a sociologist with expertise on Central-Africa, and a development economist. (Mindanao Examiner/Biopact.com)
Fuel of the future. Oil age is over.
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