Zambia will start to produce 20 million litres of ethanol a year as an alternative fuel and also plans to start making biodiesel, Energy Minister Felix Mutati said on Friday.
Mutati said the Zambia Sugar Company, a unit of South Africa's Illovo Sugar, would in December begin making ethanol, which would be mixed with petrol to allow removal of lead and to lower the fuel's cost. Ethanol will be produced from molasses, a by-product of sugar, through distillation, Mutati said.
"Zambia Sugar Company has told us they are ready to roll the production of ethanol and they will start to produce ethanol by December this year," Mutati told Reuters in an interview.
"The cost of ethanol is lower and it will therefore bring down the cost of petrol," Mutati added. Mutati did not indicate how much Zambia Sugar Company will invest in the project as its board of directors had not yet approved the budget.
He said long-term plans included producing biodiesel using jatropha, a tree with seeds similar to those of the coffee bush. Mutati said a separate firm, Amanita Zambia, whose major production is cooking oil, had offered to start producing biodiesel from jatropha, maize seed or soy beans.
"We are looking at all these proposals, but we feel the best will be to use Jatropha because there is big competition for maize, which is used for human consumption," Mutati said.
Mutati said energy experts and investors would meet this month discuss the two fuel proposals. Data from the state Energy Regulation Board (ERB) shows Zambia consumes 24 million litres of diesel and between 15 million and 20 million litres of petrol per month.
The bulk of the petrol and diesel is used to run Zambia's vast copper and cobalt mines - the country's economic mainstay - other industry and the transport sectors. The southern African country imports crude oil from the Middle East which it refines into diesel and petrol.
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