Toyota Tsusho targets cost-effective biodiesel ops

21 January 2008 12:20  [Source: ICIS news]

TOKYO (ICIS news)--Japanese trading house Toyota Tsusho and Ohta Oil Mill have developed a cost-effective biodiesel production process and plan to make it into a proper business operation in southeast Asia by 2010, a spokesman from Toyota Tsusho said late on Monday.

A plant with the new process would not need industrial water or a sewerage facility because an alkaline catalyst would be used in the manufacturing of biodiesel, the spokesman said.

The simpler infrastructure requirements would reduce the cost of plant construction, he added.

While an average biodiesel plant in Japan costs several hundred million yen to build, a unit with the new process could cut costs more than 50%, the spokesman explained.

According to the spokesman, the two companies and Toyota Tsusho subsidiary Toyota Chemical Engineering Co are conducting a feasibility study, and the firms plan to establish a pilot biodiesel production unit in southeast Asia using the new process, before starting its business operation.

Construction cost or the plant’s capacity were not yet estimated, the spokesman said.

The companies aimed to use locally-grown cereals such as sesame as feedstocks to produce biodiesel, he said.

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By: Tomomi Yokomura
+65 6780 4359

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