Japanese-owned Pacific Bio-Fields Holdings has been granted approval to plant 400,000 hectares of coconut trees in the Philippine island of Luzon to make alternative auto fuel, with the aim to sell to the Japanese market by 2014.
The move sees the first foreign company given permission by the Philippine government to use land for a coconut oil-made biodiesel project.
The Philippines is the world’s biggest coconut oil exporter, while Pilipino biodiesel producers have been increasingly using coconut oil as feedstock since a ruling calling for a mandatory 2% mixture of plant-origin fuel in diesel was implemented.
Pacific Bio-fields plans to bring its first crushing plant online by August. The Plant will have a capacity of 2,000 metric tonnes of oil per month and will initially sell to local biodiesel producers.
The project is not expected to confront the usual food-fuel debate as the fields in northern Luzon are largely abandoned after the once-dominant tobacco production receded.