PNOC mulls construction of jathropa biodiesel refinery

The Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC) is planning to build a refinery that would process jathropa into biodiesel.

PNOC president Eduardo Mañalac said the construction of the processing plant is part of the long-term plan for the development of jathropa as one of the sources of alternative fuels.

Mañalac said if they would be able to develop 118,000 hectares of land of jathropa, it should be able to produce 250,000 tons of biodiesel a year.

The PNOC chief however, pointed out that putting up a refinery would come on the latter part of the jathropa development plan.

"That is one of the options we are looking at. But at the moment, we are focusing on planting jathropa first," he said.

Mañalac said he has instructed the PNOC-Energy Development Corp. (EDC), which recently been tasked to handle the renewable energy development ventures of the PNOC group, to take charge of the japthropa development.

"We’re looking at something for biodiesel, this is one of the initiatives being pushed by President Arroyo. This jathropa is indigenous to the Philippines, we don’t know this goes by the name in other parts of the country as tuba-tuba," he said.

He said EDC has been conducting research studies and is now in the process of identifying the areas for jathropa plantation.

"Our plan involves the plantation approach. We think the success of a jathropa initiative to promote and make it work is by making sure that the production cost is low so that it could be competitive in price, and in order do to that, we have to do it in a commercial plantation style," he said.

Initially, he said EDC is testing the viability of planting jathropa in a 50-hectare land in Mindanao.

He said they are also looking at contiguous marginal lands with the right climate in eastern Luzon, Visayas and most of Mindanao as potential jathropa plantation.

Additionally, PNOC-EDC is in the midst of an experiment in Cabangcalan, Negros Occidential where it planted three varieties of jathropa to find out which one would give maximum oil yield.

"After that, then we would develop and grow our nursery. It does have several varieties, but we have screened it already. We believe this could be a prime part of the program to find alternative fuel," Mañalac said.

The funding for this project, Mañalac said, would come from PNOC’s budget for renewable energy development.

Earlier, President Arroyo has ordered the allocation of P1 billion from the PNOC and the National Development Corp. (NDC) for the development of jathropa into biodiesel.