The Philippine Department of Energy Announced that the Philippines is set to implement the 2% biodiesel mixing requirement in diesel sold at the pump by Feb next year. This is in conjunction with the requirement of the Philippine Biofuel Law for biodiesel to be mixed with diesel sold at the pump.
In line with this they are going to issue some technical standards for the 2% mix. According to Chemrez Technologies Inc. chief operating officer, Dean Lao Jr, who attended the technical working group. This is so that the the industry can come up with tighter specification so that there is minimal risk of adulteration with methyl ester other than that not made of coconut.
“What the industry is trying to avoid is the entry of cheap and nasty producers. What makes it perilous is that there could be customers who are much meticulous about standards; there could be CME that’s not compliant with Philippine National Standards.”
The DOE also released a circular on approved type of biodiesel to be sold:
Only coco-methyl ester conforming to Philippine National Standards/Energy Department QS 002:2007 shall be manufactured, sold, offered for sale, dispensed or introduced into commerce as biodiesel in the Philippines
There’s a copy of the QS 002:2007 draft here, but it could be different from the final version released to the public.
They say that one of the problems that crops up when using 100% biodiesel fuel is that it could result in fuel pump failure. Of course one cannot always point fault to biodiesel if no standard was ever followed during it’s production.
There are other things that should be considered when passing judgement on this, such as what was the source of the biodiesel in question? was it made from clean vegetable oil or used vegetable oil already used in a previous process? If it was the former, was it properly cleaned of the impurities that could lead to engine parts failure?
Literature on the web has also pointed out that a max 5% mixture of biodiesel will guarantee that no engine failure will occur due to the car not being biodiesel ready.
Expect biodiesel producers in the Philippines to increase their profits once the 2% implementation kicks in next year.
[source]
Category: Biodiesel, Law
