Energy Minister eyes new measures to prevent CPO smuggling

TUESDAY, October 29, 2019

Energy Minister Sontirat Sontijirawong said on Tuesday (October 29) that the Ministry will put new measures in place next year to promote the use of B10 biodiesel (diesel mixed with 10 per cent pure palm oil) and prevent the smuggling of crude palm oil (CPO), an ingredient in biodiesel manufacturing, from neighbouring countries.

“One of the measures is adding a specialized marker to our CPO to create a unique characteristic for domestically produced B10 biodiesel,” he said. “Other measures will soon follow, including the use of new technology to track down smugglers’ networks.”
The Ministry of Energy earlier announced that B10 biodiesel will become standard biodiesel nationwide starting January 1. The campaign to attract users to switch from B7 to B10 biodiesel was launched on October 1 when the price of B10 was reduced to below that of B7 at Bt2/litre, and made B20 cheaper than B7 at Bt3/litre to attract users.
“The use of B10 nationwide will help Thai oil palm farmers absorb 2.2-2.3 million tonnes of CPO at annually, which is why we need to prevent CPO smuggling,” he said. “Also, B10 has lower pollution emission rate therefore it won’t contribute to the PM2.5 problem,”
Earlier Sontirat assigned the Department of Energy Business (DOEB) to promote the use of B10 biodiesel by cooperating with car manufacturers to issue B10 stickers for new and existing cars. “Manufacturers like Toyota, Isuzu, Nissan, Ford, MG and Chevrolet already confirmed that their current model diesel engines are fully B10 compatible and we are keeping B7 on the market to support older models and European cars.”