B10 biodiesel is set to be officially available in the fourth quarter of this year, after several hiccups were encountered on the way.
The new B10 biodiesel was set to be commercially available in June, but some car makers claimed that B10 biodiesel has detrimental effects on diesel engines.
Currently, the biodiesel that is currently available is of the B7 blend. B10 biodiesel has 10% palm methyl ester with 90% fossil fuel diesel. Some analyst claimed that B10 biodiesel is set to be a game changer if fully implemented.
The biggest hurdle was getting car makers to accept B10 biodiesel, which was the biggest challenge for the Malaysian Biodiesel Association.
U.R. Unnithan, president of the Malaysian Biodiesel Association said that the national biodiesel mandate can negate the impact due to losses incurred from crude oil prices. “A higher CPO price has a significant impact on the economy as just an RM100 per tonne increase in CPO would amount to RM2bil in revenue for the industry. A higher CPO price could also support thousands of smallholders who are dependent on this commodity for their livelihood,” he said.
Despite that, some car makers remained skeptical in regards to the B10 biodiesel on their vehicles. “These matters are being dealt with through individual and multi-stakeholder consultation processes,” added Unnithan. He further added that these issues are slowly being solved.
He also added that the Malaysian Biodiesel Association looks forward to work with various parties, including car makers, petroleum companies, automotive associations, palm oil suppliers, Plantation Industries and Commodities Ministry, MPOB, Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) and various government agencies to implement B10 biodiesel.
“In fact, the Malaysian Biodiesel Association has also held several demonstrations on the long-term use of B50 and B100 biodiesel on some vehicles without any issues, hence we don’t see any technical issues at all for B10,” he claimed.
Other countries, including Indonesia, United States, Colombia and France has slowly implemented a higher biodiesel blend, which Unnithan hopes will put Malaysia on par with other agriculture-based counties.
Via: StarBiz
