Vietnam makes first ethanol fuel

A Vietnamese company in the central province of Quang Nam produced its and the country’s first batch of ethanol fuel on Wednesday.

The biofuel for motor vehicles is made from sugar cane and cassava and could have a retail price VND2,000 per liter less than the VND15,700 it costs for a liter of straight 92-octane petrol.

The exact price at the pump will depend on the ratio of ethanol to gasoline in the final mix, said a representative of Dong Xanh Joint Stock Company, whose ethanol plant is situated in Dai Tan Commune.

The plant has an annual output capacity of 100,000 tons (or 120 million liters) and is expected to consume 300,000 tons of dry cassava yearly.

That translates to an annual income of at least VND300 billion (nearly USD17 million) for farmers in the central region who supply the plant, according to the company.

Last year PetroVietnam Oil North Company, a member of state-owned PetroVietnam Oil Corporation (PV Oil), trialed the use of Gasohol E5 biofuel from China in Hanoi’s taxicabs.

However, the trial was aborted when it turned out that the fuel was being sold without authorization to the public at large. Click to original source...