PetroChina starts work on first biodiesel plant

PetroChina has started work on a 10,000-metric-ton-per-year biodiesel plant in Nanchong, China. The new unit, which is PetroChinas first biodiesel project, will expand output to an ultimate annual production capacity of about 100,000 metric tons by 2010. PetroChina Southwest Oil and Gas Field Co., the PetroChina subsidiary that will run the plant, has finished designing the plant, and hopes to bring it on stream before the end of the year. The Nanchong plant will use jatropha as its main feedstock. PetroChina Southwest has signed an agreement with Sichuan-based agricultural outfit Panzhihua stating that PetroChina will invest in a large jatropha curcas plantation that should supply all the Nanchong biodiesel plants needs by 2015. PetroChina expects to produce 200,000 metric tons per year of biodiesel and about 2 million metric tons per year of ethanol from non-food crops by the end of 2010. (May 27, 2007)