Bio-Fuels May Provide 15 Percent of Fuel Consumption

2009-03-12

Bio-fuels, particularly ethanol and bio-diesel, may contribute 15 per cent of Mozambique's national fuel consumption within the next five years, according to Energy Minister Salvador Namburete.

Namburete said the government was considering putting a mixture of biofuels and fossil fuels onto the market. But before these mixtures are given the green light, the government must work out regulations and indicate the percentage of ethanol or bio-diesel to be mixed with petrol and diesel.

"There must be legal instruments to determine the levels of the mixtures, and these must state if we must start at the level of five or 10 per cent, bearing in mind that we want to attain 15 per cent by 2014", he said.

Besides the issue of regulating the mixtures, it was also necessary to give the fuel importing and distributing companies time to prepare themselves for the new reality, Namburete added.

Mozambique is committed to developing bio-fuels in order to reduce the country's dependence on imports of fossil fuels.

The company ECOMOZ (Renewable Alternative Energies Ltd), which is a joint initiative between Mozambique's state-owned fuel company, Petromoc, and several other partners, has produced about one million litres of bio-diesel, using coconut oil as the raw material, since 2007.

Other initiatives for the production of bio-fuels, such as Procana, in the southern province of Gaza, are in the early stages of producing sugar cane for conversion into ethanol. - (AIM NEWS)

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