Thailand, R.P. to standardize biofuel BANGKOK - Thailand and the Philippines will work together to set regional standards for biofuel from easily available crops and lower crude oil import bills, the two energy importing nations said on Tuesday.
Both countries, which host assembly lines of international automakers, also pledged to push car producers to use engines suitable for ethanol-blended fuel. "Given the need to have concerted regional efforts, the Philippines is endorsing Thailand to be the Asean regional center for biofuels," said a joint statement by Thai Energy Minister Prommin Lertsuridej and his Philippine counterpart Vincent Perez. The agreement, giving the lead role to Thailand in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, was reached on the sidelines of a two-day conference on biofuel in Bangkok ending on Tuesday. Both countries have made moves to promote biofuel use, but most of the participants at the 14-nation conference were junior ministers or senior bureaucrats. Thailand plans to dilute automobile gasoline with ethanol as high oil prices force it to reduce dependence on energy imports costing $10 billion a year. The government is replacing imported octane booster additive MTBE with a 10 percent mix of ethanol in gasoline, called Gasohol. The Philippines decided last week to study the merits of producing ethanol and in July it decided to use a 1 percent blend of methyl ester made from coconuts in diesel for public transport. Both countries also agreed to have their national oil firms -- Thailand's PTT PCL and Philippines' Petron Corp -- to share technical expertise on biofuel. "They have abundant coconut supplies and are testing coconut oil in diesel while we have a lot of sugar and moving ahead with sugar-based ethanol, so we can share our expertise," PTT President Prasert Bunsumpun told Reuters. Reuters [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
