By Teddy P. Molina Updated July 04, 2009 12:00 AM [ philstar.com ]
STO. DOMINGO, Ilocos Sur, Philippines – A Japanese group has commited to invest P3.5 billion to fund a coco-biodiesel project in northern Philippines in partnership with a local corporation.
This was learned yesterday from former Ilocos Sur Rep. Salacnib Baterina, president of the Bio-Energy NL Inc. (BENLINC), the local partner of the Japanese group identified as Pacific Bio-Fields Holdings Plc. (PBFH).
Top officials of the two companies met with President Arroyo in Tokyo during her recent visit to Japan where they announced the availability of the P3.5-billion fund.
Baterina said they will start putting up a CME (coconut methyl esther) processing plant next month in Pasuquin, Ilocos Norte. The plant is expected to be operational by December.
The Pasuquin plant would be capable of churning out 24,000 tons of CME a year. The CME will then be shipped to Japan to form part of the huge biodiesel needs of factories and motor vehicles.
“Japan’s standard accepts only CME as the biofuel component of its diesel mix,” Baterina said, stressing the economic and job-generating benefits of the project to the Philippines.
PBFH and BENLINC started planting coconut trees in December last year in a 1,500-hectare forest area Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte.
The Pagudpud planting area is part of a vast tract of forestland extending up to northern Cagayan that the Japanese-Filipino partnership plans to convert into coconut plantations under an occupancy agreement with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
The agreement took shape during a meeting with DENR Secretary Lito Atienza and the investors last year. Baterina said their group is targeting 400,000 hectares of planting area and are also eyeing idle public lands in the two Ilocos provinces.
As their coconut trees are not yet yielding fruits, the former lawmaker said their group will be buying coconuts from available sources in the country, from Northern Luzon up to the coconut-producing areas in the Bicol region.
They expect their coconut supply to be greatly boosted when they start harvesting from their own coco plantations.
The coconut planting project took off after Toyo Engineering Corp. in Japan affirmed the viability of setting up the project in northern Philippines. The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) had commisioned Toyo to conduct a feasibility study on the project in 2007.
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