Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter

Paulwell

Private sector oil marketing firms are delibera-ting when they will be ready to introduce ethanol as a fuel additive in gasolene which is to be made mandatory by government later this year.

Replacing MTBE is expected to save Jamaica a significant proportion of the US$40 million it costs to import each year - part of a national fuel import bill expected to have reached US$1.5 billion in 2006.

Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell told The Gleaner that he had given marketing firms two weeks to respond to government plans follow-ing a meeting with stakeholders on Monday. This follows a successful trial conducted by Petrojam, the state-owned oil refinery which produces ethanol as part of a joint venture with Brazilian firm Coimex.

"Some time as soon as I get the feedback from the marketers, then we will be able to make the change for octane 87 which should be long before the end of June in my view; and then octane 90 by the end of the year," said Mr. Paulwell.

'No problems'

The minister is due to meet today with Petrojam to discuss the report on the ethanol trial before making the results public, said its managing director, Dr. Winston Watson. He would not reveal the results of the report, but reiterated that there had been "no problems" with the 60 cars - constituting a range of models - that were tested using the octane 87/ethanol blend.

Government will then fix dates for ethanol to replace the imported and more polluting MTBE based on this feedback, he added.

Currently, the Petrojam refinery, which is located on Marcus Garvey Drive in Kingston, is using sugar cane feedstock imported from Brazil, but is intending to switch over to local feedstock following the divestment of the state-owned Sugar Corporation of Jamaica later this year.

Under the divestment, the industry has a target to produce 70 million tonnes of ethanol which will be sufficient to meet local demand for gasolene.

However, Karl James, chairman of Petrojam Ethanol and general manager of Jamaica Cane Products Sales Ltd., said that the local sugar industry will take until 2008/9 to meet this demand following replanting and efforts to increase yields.

ross.sheil@gleanerjm.com