Croatia: Bio-diesel Production Starts

15:19 - 15 May 2006 - Countries of the European Union must replace by the year 2020 a total of 20 percent of traditional fuels with bio-fuels (bio-diesel, bio-ethanol, bio-gas, bio-hydrogen, etc.). This also represents an obligation for all EU candidates, including Croatia, 'CT' reports.

By the year 2005, bio-fuels should have participated in EU with at least two percent in overall fuel sales, reaching in each member-state by the year 2010 as much as 5,75 percent.
Croatian Government's Decree on quality of bio-fuels introduces liability for Croatia to introduce 5,75% of bio-fuel in overall consumption of fuel in Croatia by the end of 2010.  At this time, there is only one facility for production of bio-diesel in Croatia, located in Ozalj, with a capacity of 30.000 tonnes. The owner of this facility Vlado Rozic stated that production would be initiated on Monday, while manufactured bio-diesel would be exported to Austria and Italy.
Zagreb-based company Ekonerg – Institute for Energy and Environment Protection is currently conducting a project dubbed "Introduction of bio-diesel in Zagreb public transportation", said head of this project Snjezana Fijan-Parlov.
Feasibility study will be completed at the end of this month, when it would be revised by experts from Austria.
Researches have shown that the city of Zagreb annually "produces" more than 1,400.000 litres of scrap edible oil in the city's hotels, restaurants and other facilities, along with 1,600.000 litres from households.
The quantity of bio-diesel manufactured from such scrap edible oil is sufficient for 80 city buses per year.
Remaining necessary quantity of scrap edible oil for production of bio-diesel would be extracted from oil seed rape.
At this time, edible oil producer IPK Cepin and INA expressed interest in production of bio-diesel.

Source: Croatia Today.

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