Online Reporter
THE disruption in petroleum supplies caused by the conflict in the Middle East and the associated rapid rise in prices for petroleum products have added to the already urgent need for Zimbabwe to source more of its fuels locally, to help stabilise supplies and costs.
The two main sources of local fuels are both processing plant material, ethanol for blending with petrol and jatropha seed for biodiesel.
Thus they both help to reduce Zimbabwe’s net greenhouse emissions since the resulting carbon dioxide they produce is needed to grow new plants, recycling this critical greenhouse gas.
Under the Second Republic, investments have been made or expanded at both the GreenFuel ethanol plant in Chisumbanje and the Finealt Engineering biodiesel plant in Mutoko.
GreenFuel is a private company running a partnership with the Agricultural and Rural Development Authority, which leases the land to the company and its farmers to plant sugar cane with contracted inputs, while Finealt Engineering is a company set up by the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development.
The investments for dramatically increased production of both biofuels are coming on line now, a coincidence, but one that shows forward planning and strong Government policies in past years made a great deal of sense, both economically to help cut import bills and Zimbabwe’s carbon footprint, and now to stretch supplies of imported fuels.
A major side benefit of both schemes is that they provide guaranteed markets for thousands of local farmers, sugarcane growers in the eastern Lowveld and those harvesting jatropha in Mutoko and Murehwa districts and surrounding areas.
The Mutoko industrial complex also has separate plants for processing sunflower seed and producing cooking oil and soap.
The pilot biodiesel plant set up in 2006, that was producing 3 000 litres a day has been expanded, a major investment, and is about to produce 22 000 litres a day with President Mnangagwa commissioning this significant investment next month.
Even this plant is still in early days and there is considerable room for expansion of new plants in other districts.
Biodiesel does not have to be blended with diesel; it can just be put in the tank of the truck. So the scope is effectively unlimited. With present prices it is fairly obvious that biodiesel can compete easily on price, while still giving the farmers and other harvesters a reasonable return.
Even if supply chains return to normal, a little care in the tax regime can, if necessary, ensure that biodiesel is a fuel of choice on price alone.
Ethanol has a longer history and up to now the compulsory blend is five percent in petrol. Ethanol is a high octane fuel and the only reason oil companies early last century went for adding tetraethyl lead to petrol rather than ethanol was that they could patent the lead addition and make more money.
Lead-free petrols, and all Zimbabwean petrol is lead free, might need more expensive and complex refining, but adding ethanol boosts performance automatically.
The percentage of ethanol depends a lot on altitude, the higher the altitude the higher the octane rating that is needed and so more ethanol can be added.
Zimbabwe is a higher altitude country so 20 percent ethanol is easily a rational figure with modern engines.
GreenFuel has just completed the processing and storage infrastructure, and has expanded sugarcane production to allow a fourfold rise in output. E20 can soon be set as the norm sold at service stations.
Both the Chisumbanje and Mutoko factory complexes have useful by-products. Chisumbanje has been researching how the sugarcane, after the juice is extracted, can be converted into a good stockfeed that can undercut the prices of traditional stock feeds.
The biodiesel technology in Mutoko has already been used in separate factories to process sunflower seed, a crop particularly well-suited for smallscale farmers, into cooking oil and soap.
Before the big rush into soya as almost the sole source of cooking oil, sunflower cooking oil was considered a premium product and ruled much of the higher end of the market.
The processed sunflower seed, after oil is extracted, is the basis for another set of stock feeds, once again solving a double demand and adding to viability.
The two major fuel investments are, it must be stressed, the result of long-term Second Republic policies now producing results, remembering that expanding factories several-fold is not a cheap or instant process, so investments have to be safe for products that the Government will support.
