China’s largest state oil company to invest $5 billion in Indonesia for palm, jatropha cultivation and biodiesel production

In China, the country’s largest state oil company, Sinopec, said it will invest $5 billion in biofuel plants and crop development in Indonesia. The company will invest in jatropha and palm plantations and biodiesel plants in the country’s Papua and East Kalimantan provinces. The project is slated to begin later this year.

China continues to move aggressively to increase its biodiesel capacity, changing its biodiesel production target to 200,000 tons by 2010 and two million tons by 2020.

The managing director of Nantong Biolux Bioenergy Feed told the Reuters Global Agriculture and Biofuel Summit that Biolux plans to build an 85 Mgy biodiesel facility in Nantong, and that it would be the largest in China. Operations at the facility will commence in 2009. Projected project cost is $118.5 million. Also, General Biodiesel announced recently that it will construct biodiesel plants in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Wenzhou in a $100 million direct investment.
China also recently announced that jatropha cultivation will be expanded from 66,000 acres to 660,000 acres. The expansion is planned for Yunnan, Sichuan and Guizhou provinces, which have the most suitable climate for jatropha cultivation. The expansion takes place under the auspices of China’s Green Poverty in Reduction program which was launched in 2006. The $8.5 billion project is a joint venture between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), China’s Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Commerce. The project aims to develop biofuels and other eco-friendly projects in China’s poorer western provinces.

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