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Eastern Renewables to expand cassava plantations

16th May, 2008

Eastern Renewables Fuels, a wholly owned subsidiary of North Carolina-based Eastern Petroleum, plans to expand its cassava plantation in the Philippines to 4,500 hectares this year to meet the growing demand for biofuel.

The company has harvested cassava from an initial 1,000 hectares and the cassava chips will be shipped to the ethanol processing facility of its partner in China, the Guanxi State Farm Bureau, Eastern Petroleum chairman and CEO Fernando Martinez says.

Martinez says Eastern Renewables hoped to harvest the cassava from a further 3,500 hectares by March next year. He says that since the company had yet to set up an ethanol refining facility in the Philippines, cassava harvested from its plantations would continue to be shipped to Guanxi for processing.

'What we produce here will be for processing and consumption in China,' he says. 'But we may also consider buying back the processed ethanol, especially when the mandated blend takes effect.'

Under a biofuels law, petrol distributed in the Philippines should have an ethanol content of at least 5% by 2009. The mandated blend will rise to at least 10% four years after the implementation of the law.

Eastern Renewables has cassava plantations in the provinces of Zambales, Sarangani, Davao del Norte and South Cotabato and in General Santos City. It is also eyeing a spot within the petrochemical park of government-owned PNOC Alternative Fuels Corp. in Bataan province, where it plans to set up an ethanol production plant and depot.