The biodiesel project is part of the Government initiatives to stablise the palm oil stock and price.
KUCHING: In an effort to help mitigate the downtrend in crude palm oil (CPO) price, the Government has decided to extend the removal of the CPO export duty to December this year, said Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas.
He said the low price of CPO recently was due to the oversupply of vegetable oils and the price fluctuations were an inevitable global phenomenon which was typical of community products.
“The Government will do whatever it can to help mitigate this downtrend and one immediate action taken was to remove the export duty for CPO for September and October, and subsequently extended to November to December this year,” he said in his speech at the national seminar on ‘Palm Oil Milling, Refining, Environment and Quality’ here yesterday.
Uggah said the move had helped check the price downtrend by almost RM200 per tonne.
He said for every RM100 increase in price, the additional revenue from palm oil exports for the industry was about RM2bil a year.
“It is, thus, a strategic decision by the Government to forego export tax revenue in order that the industry, particularly, the smallholders obtain better prices for the commodity,” he said.
Another initiative, he said was the implementation of the biodiesel project as part of moves to stablise the palm oil stock and price.
He said the B5 Biodiesel programme had been fully implemented in the transport sector in Peninsular Malaysia this year, and would be extended to Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan towards the end of this year.
The B5 Biodiesel, which involves blending of 5% palm biodesel with 95% of petroleum diesel, when fully implemented will utilise 500,000 tonnes of palm oil annually and will help stabilise the palm oil price.
On the more environmentally friendly fuel – B7 Biodiesel – for the transport sector, which was introduced in Peninsular Malaysia two days ago, Uggah said it would be implemented in Sabah and Sarawak next month.
The B7 Biodesel is a blend of 7% palm biodiesel and 93% petroleum diesel, and has lower greenhouse gas emissions than diesel.
Uggah said the B7 programme would be implemented in the industrial sector early next year, and when fully implemented, would utilise 700,000 tonnes of palm oil a year and would further strengthen the palm oil price.
The programme will be mandatory (for the subsidised sector) and all petrol stations will offer B7 Biodiesel in place of the B5 Biodiesel which is now being sold.
Uggah said using biodiesel would help both the countrys palm oil industry and the environment, adding that the B7 Biodiesel programme would reduce use of diesel by 667.6 million litres and increase the use of biodiesel from 300,000 to 575,000 tonnes yearly. — Bernama
Source : The Star
