28 March 2008
Maputo — The Buzi Company, the main employer in the central Mozambican district of that name, and the Portuguese company Galp-Energia have formed a partnership to produce vegetable oil ad bio-diesel from oilseeds.
According to a report in the Beira daily paper "Diario de Mocambique", this project should be in full production by 2012.
According to the chairman of the Buzi Company, Jorge Petiz, speaking at the ceremony in Buzi announcing the partnership, the project will create a new company, GALP Buzi-Agro Energia, which will have "a positive socio-economic impact" on the people of Buzi district. Local farmers would grow the oilseeds and sell them to GALP Buzi.
"This will significantly increase their family income", said Petiz, "thus contributing to the fight against poverty".
The chairman of Galp Energia, Ferreira de Oliveira, insisted that the project will be socially and environmentally responsible. "The project we shall develop, will have to be certified for its environmental sustainability", he declared.
The Buzi district administrator, Sergio Moiane, said the aims of the new company will complement the district's strategic development plan, launched in 2006. The main goals of that plan, he said, were to increase employment and household income and attract investment.
One of the plants that can produce bio-diesel is the jatropha shrub. Moiane said there are already farmers growing jatropha in Buzi on about 120 hectares. With the start of this new project, the area under jatropha cultivation could be increased.
The Buzi company used to be a sate owned sugar company, but it was paralysed for many years, due partly to the war of destabilisation, and partly to the obsolete state of its equipment. It was privatized and re-inaugurated in 2004, and currently its main product is alcohol.
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