Dubai-based asset manager Daman Investments will take a majority stake in a venture to build the emirates' first plant to produce biodiesel from inedible oils, Daman Chief Executive Shehab Gargash said on Sunday.
Rapidly-growing Dubai is facing a surge in oil demand as one of the cities benefiting from an petrodollar-fuelled economic boom in the Gulf. It is the trade and tourism hub of the United Arab Emirates, one of the world's highest per-capita emitters of greenhouse gasses.
"We need to harness all our energy sources domestically to diversify the energy mix and fuel the infrastructure required for economic growth," Emirates Biodiesel (EmBio) managing partner and founder Wadah Abusin said at a news conference on Sunday. "We're focused on sustainability, it will reduce some of the carbon footprint."
EmBio will produce around 3 million gallons per year (or 230 barrels per day) of biodiesel, a fraction of the UAE's around 50,000 bpd of diesel consumption.