news/updates
Negros Occ. to lead in biofuels – Zubiri
By Carla Gomez
Inquirer Visayas Bureau
April 29, 2008
BACOLOD CITY – Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri on Saturday said Negros Occidental would lead the way in alternative fuels.
Zubiri, who was in the province for the annual Panaad Sa Negros Festival here, said he wanted Negros to be the Brazilian model for production of EH 5, an 85-percent ethanol blend from sugar that could bring down the cost of fuel to P31 to 32 per liter.
Zubiri also noted that the production of biofuels would save the sugar industry from collapse when tariffs on imported sugar are lifted under the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Free Trade Agreement.
"We must protect the sugar industry and make it in tune with the times. Biofuels will give alternative value to (sugar) cane," he said.
The biofuels program would also help the country address the continuing increase in the price of oil products, Zubiri said.
With the price of crude oil increasing to $120 per barrel, the price of gasoline would reach P60 to P65 per liter, he said.
"That is why the Philippines is not giving up on the program," he added.
Zubiri said the road map for the Philippines Biofuels Program included a ban on the planting of biofuel feedstocks in all irrigated and highly productive lands.
The program also recommended that the bioethanol production would be implemented only in sugar-producing districts, using excess sugar, he said.
Zubiri said the Philippines has an excess sugar production of almost 300,000 tons that would yield to about 400 million liters of bioethanol.
The program will also use almost four million hectares of idle cogonal and denuded mountain lands to plant either jatropha or malunggay.
