Guanacaste Ethanol Pilot Plan To Go
National
InfoWebPress – The sale of biofuels will begin countrywide during
March following the evaluation of a pilot plan conducted in
Guanacaste. In this manner, all gasoline sold in the country will
have 7 percent ethanol content.
Ethanol is made here from sugarcane and yuca (cassava), while
biodiesel is extracted from oil-producing plants such as higuerilla
(castor bean), tempate (Jatropha) or oil palm. However, the latter
fuel won’t be commercialized in the country due to its high
production cost.
Roberto Dobles, minister of the environment and energy, said he
expects that the purchase of ethanol to be mixed with regular and
super gasoline will be adjudicated by March. However, a decree will
have to be signed first for establishing the legal framework of a
biofuels industry in the country.
For strategic reasons, the Costa Rican Petroleum Refinery (RECOPE)
chose for the ethanol pilot plan the Barranca (Puntarenas) Depot,
which supplies 64 fuel stations in Guanacaste and the Central
Pacific region. RECOPE organized two educational sessions to explain
to customers the objectives of the pilot plan, inform them about the
physical-chemical characteristics of gasoline mixed with ethanol,
and hear concerns and suggestions on the project.
This initiative began with presidential order No.
041-MP-H-MOPT-MINAE, which instructed the Ministry of the
Environment and Energy (MINAE), the Ministry of Agriculture (MAG)
and RECOPE to give priority to studies and any necessary actions to
begin using, as soon as possible, biofuels in the country, with
emphasis on offering gasoline-ethanol mixes.
In this way, the National Alcohol Commission set as one of its
priorities the establishment of a pilot plan that included 30
vehicles owned by RECOPE. Later on, the state company set the goal
of “evaluating the logistics and handling of gasoline mixed with
ethanol, from the mixing at RECOPE facilities to the distribution at
sale points.”
To accomplish this goal, a commission with representatives from MAG,
MINAE, RECOPE and the President’s Office was formed, which analyzed
the results of the pilot plan in Guanacaste and the Central Pacific
and made recommendations for the second phase of the palan, which is
the sale of gasoline-ethanol mixes countrywide.
Other goals of the overall effort include evaluating the logistics
of buying, mixing and distributing ethanol to fuel stations;
generating trust in this product; and training the personnel who
will be in charge of administrative contractual, operational and
logistical tasks in the offering of this new fuel. |
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