Trans-Asia Renewable drops jatropha project

MANILA, Philippines - Trans-Asia Renewable Energy Corp., a subsidiary of Trans-Asia Oil and Development Corp. of the Phinma group, will no longer enter the biofuels development business.

Francisco Viray, Trans-Asia president, said they have encountered some obstacles in the course of their exploratory stages for the development of a feedstock, particularly jatropha.

No more (jatropha development for us),” Viray said, when asked about their venture into biofuels development several months ago.

Viray said they tried planting some jatropha in a property in Laguna, but efforts to make it reach commercial quantity failed.

“We found out early in the game that there are some problems on the agricultural side (for jatropha planting),” he said adding that contrary to popular belief, jatropha requires a lot water.

“It cannot grow in just any land, you have to water it often. If you will not do so, you will not get the yield that you want. So we believe it will not be as viable as we thought it would be,” he said.

Among other factors, he said the company decided to abandon its bid for biofuels development.

“(We are officially) out of biofuels business,” the Trans-Asia official said.

It was reported that the company had set aside about P600,000 for the establishment of a jatropha breeding farm at the Batangas Union Industrial Park. The farm, which covers around four hectares, will determine whether the jatropha plant can be used as biodiesel source.

The passage of the Biofuels Law in 2006 encouraged the company to look into jathropa. The BioFuels Law of 2006 mandates a one-percent biodiesel blend on all diesel products sold in the country.

“First of all we were not really going to full scale of plantation, the reason why we’re doing seedling because we want first to know whether jatropha will really prosper or grow in the Philippines,” Viray said in an earlier interview.

Based on preliminary studies, jatropha has yet to match the yields being produced from palm oil which are now about 600 kilograms of oil per 6.25 hectares of land.

In other countries like Thailand, there is still hesitation on the utilization of jatropha as a feedstock because of the level of yields compared to other feedstock like cassava, palm oil and sweet sorghum.

Philippine National Oil Co.-Alternative Fuels Corp. (PNOC-AFC) has been giving much support on jatropha financially.

Some P1 billion has been allotted to PNOC-AFC to develop such kind of feedstock.