biodiesel

A total of 366 petrol kiosks in Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan will begin selling B7 biodiesel from end-January, plantation industries and commodities minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas has said, according to a Bernama report.

“The fuel, which meets international standards, will use 138,000 tonnes of palm oil biodiesel a year,” he said, adding that the 7% palm biodiesel/93% petroleum diesel blend has been available in Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan since last month, but only on a limited basis.

Uggah said the use of B7 biodiesel in Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan is set to bump total palm oil biodiesel usage to 576,000 tones a year nationwide. The B7 biodiesel programme has already been fully implemented in Peninsular Malaysia.

Also, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) is studying B10 biodiesel (10% palm oil blend) compatibility through the implementation of the palm oil biodiesel incentive scheme (IBS) on a voluntary basis with the industrial sectors.

b5 bio

B10 and B20 biodiesel will be tested on MPOB’s vehicles, including those of its research station. Meanwhile, B10 will be tried on 10 vehicles belonging to Alam Flora and 50 belonging to Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL), he said.

“To encourage the use of palm oil biodiesel in industrial sectors, MPOB has allocated RM3 million under IBS by offering the fuel for sale or usage at RM300 per tonne,” he said, adding that the programme, which had been implemented since March 2013, could increase palm oil biodiesel consumption by as much as 10,000 tonnes a year.

“The Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) has spent RM340 million to build 35 petroleum depots nationwide to blend biodiesel,” he said, adding that five of them were in Sarawak (owned by Petronas, Shell and Synergy), eight in Sabah (owned by Petronas, Shell and Petron) and two in Labuan (owned by Petronas and Shell).

MPOB director-general Datuk Dr Choo Yuen May said the board had commercialised the production of winter-grade palm oil biodiesel technology at three dedicated plants in Malaysia, with the capacity of blending 30,000 tonnes of the fuel per year.