|
|
Zimbabwe: Bio-Diesel Plant Churns Out 100 000 Tonnes of Fuel
 |
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
Financial Gazette (Harare)
13 March 2008
Posted to the web 13 March 2008
Kumbirai Mafunda
Harare
AN ambitious plan by the government to venture into bio-diesel production has begun to bear fruit after the plant produced 100 000 tonnes of fuel.
Central bank Governor Gideon Gono last week reported that a bio-diesel plant set up as a joint venture with a South Korean firm was now producing up to 25 000 tonnes of diesel per month, which could help ease the country's acute fuel shortages.
"The bio-diesel plant now produces as much as 25 000 tonnes of the product per month.
"As much as 100 000 tonnes of diesel are here today, perhaps a small step forward but a giant forward leap for our economy."
He said the provision of adequate diesel was at the heart of the country's success in agro reforms.
"The summer cropping programme requires no less than 100 million litres of diesel.
"The bio-diesel plant will indeed underpin our agricultural recovery efforts," Gono said at the handover of farm equipment to new farmers last weekend.
Zimbabwe, like most countries in southern Africa, is largely dependent on imported petroleum products to power its industrial production and transport systems.
The bio-diesel processing plant, the first of its kind in southern Africa, has a capacity to produce between 90-100 million litres of diesel annually, making it the largest of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa.
At full capacity, the plant will meet 10 percent of the country's annual diesel requirements, which translates into foreign currency savings of US$80 million annually.
Already, new black farmers who seized land under a controversial land reform exercise in the last eight years have put 10 000 hectares under jatropha production out of a targeted and ambitious 40 000 hectares, in a desperate bid to boost the production of bio-diesel.
|
Zimbabwe, which holds crucial presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections at the end of the month, is grappling with a fuel crisis, with most service stations going for months without receiving deliveries of both petrol and diesel.
Last year a spirit medium fooled some government officials into a wild goose chase after claiming to have discovered diesel oozing from rocks in Mashonaland West.
Observers fear the critical shortage of fuel could scupper the administration of the elections on March 29.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 Financial Gazette. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
