
PT Sinergi Oleo Nusantara
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Founded Date October 4, 1997
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Central Asia’s Vast Biofuel Opportunity
The recent revelations of a International Energy Administration whistleblower that the IEA may have misshaped key oil projections under extreme U.S. pressure is, if true (and whistleblowers seldom step forward to advance their careers), a slow-burning thermonuclear explosion on future worldwide oil production. The Bush administration’s actions in pressuring the IEA to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of discovering new reserves have the potential to throw federal governments’ long-term preparation into chaos.
Whatever the reality, increasing long term global needs seem certain to overtake production in the next years, especially offered the high and rising expenses of establishing new super-fields such as Kazakhstan’s overseas Kashagan and Brazil’s southern Atlantic Jupiter and Carioca fields, which will need billions in investments before their very first barrels of oil are produced.
In such a situation, additives and substitutes such as biofuels will play an ever-increasing function by extending beleaguered production quotas. As market forces and increasing costs drive this innovation to the leading edge, among the wealthiest potential production areas has been absolutely overlooked by financiers already – Central Asia. Formerly the USSR’s cotton “plantation,” the area is poised to become a major player in the production of biofuels if adequate foreign financial investment can be obtained. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is made mainly from sugarcane, or the United States, where it is primarily distilled from corn, Central Asia’s ace resource is an indigenous plant, Camelina sativa.
Of the previous Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian republics, those clustered around the coasts of the Caspian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have actually seen their economies boom due to the fact that of record-high energy costs, while Turkmenistan is waiting in the wings as an increasing manufacturer of gas.
Farther to the east, in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, geographical seclusion and fairly little hydrocarbon resources relative to their Western Caspian neighbors have largely prevented their ability to cash in on rising international energy needs already. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan stay mainly reliant for their electrical requirements on their Soviet-era hydroelectric facilities, however their increased need to create winter electrical energy has actually resulted in autumnal and winter season water discharges, in turn seriously affecting the farming of their western downstream next-door neighbors Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
What these three downstream nations do have however is a Soviet-era legacy of agricultural production, which in Uzbekistan’s and Turkmenistan case was largely directed towards cotton production, while Kazakhstan, beginning in the 1950s with Khrushchev’s “Virgin Lands” programs, has actually ended up being a significant producer of wheat. Based on my discussions with Central Asian government authorities, provided the thirsty needs of cotton monoculture, foreign proposals to diversify agrarian production towards biofuel would have great appeal in Astana, Ashgabat and Tashkent and to a lower extent Astana for those sturdy financiers happy to bank on the future, specifically as a plant indigenous to the region has actually already shown itself in trials.
Known in the West as incorrect flax, wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame and Siberian oilseed, camelina is drawing in increased clinical interest for its oleaginous qualities, with a number of European and American business already investigating how to produce it in industrial amounts for biofuel. In January Japan Airlines undertook a historical test flight using camelina-based bio-jet fuel, becoming the very first Asian carrier to try out flying on fuel originated from sustainable feedstocks throughout a one-hour demonstration flight from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. The test was the culmination of a 12-month examination of camelina’s functional efficiency capability and possible commercial practicality.
As an alternative energy source, camelina has much to suggest it. It has a high oil content low in saturated fat. In contrast to Central Asia’s thirsty “king cotton,” camelina is drought-resistant and unsusceptible to spring freezing, needs less fertilizer and herbicides, and can be utilized as a rotation crop with wheat, which would make it of specific interest in Kazakhstan, now Central Asia’s major wheat exporter. Another perk of camelina is its tolerance of poorer, less fertile conditions. An acre sown with camelina can produce up to 100 gallons of oil and when planted in rotation with wheat, camelina can increase wheat production by 15 percent. A ton (1000 kg) of camelina will include 350 kg of oil, of which pressing can draw out 250 kg. Nothing in camelina production is wasted as after processing, the plant’s debris can be utilized for livestock silage. Camelina silage has an especially attractive concentration of omega-3 fatty acids that make it a particularly fine animals feed candidate that is simply now getting recognition in the U.S. and Canada. Camelina is quick growing, produces its own natural herbicide (allelopathy) and well versus weeds when an even crop is established. According to Britain’s Bangor University’s Centre for Alternative Land Use, “Camelina could be an ideal low-input crop ideal for bio-diesel production, due to its lower requirements for nitrogen fertilizer than oilseed rape.”
Camelina, a branch of the mustard family, is native to both Europe and Central Asia and hardly a brand-new crop on the scene: historical proof suggests it has been cultivated in Europe for a minimum of 3 centuries to produce both grease and animal fodder.
Field trials of production in Montana, presently the center of U.S. camelina research study, revealed a vast array of outcomes of 330-1,700 pounds of seed per acre, with oil content differing in between 29 and 40%. Optimal seeding rates have actually been identified to be in the 6-8 pound per acre variety, as the seeds’ small size of 400,000 seeds per pound can produce issues in germination to attain an optimum plant density of around 9 plants per sq. ft.
Camelina’s capacity could allow Uzbekistan to begin breaking out of its most dolorous tradition, the imposition of a cotton monoculture that has distorted the country’s attempts at agrarian reform considering that achieving independence in 1991. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Russian government identified that Central Asia would become its cotton plantation to feed Moscow’s growing textile market. The process was sped up under the Soviets. While Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were also ordered by Moscow to plant cotton, Uzbekistan in specific was singled out to produce “white gold.”
By the end of the 1930s the Soviet Union had actually become self-dependent in cotton; five years later on it had actually ended up being a significant exporter of cotton, producing more than one-fifth of the world’s production, focused in Uzbekistan, which produced 70 percent of the Soviet Union’s output.
Try as it might to diversify, in the lack of alternatives Tashkent remains wedded to cotton, producing about 3.6 million loads annually, which brings in more than $1 billion while making up roughly 60 percent of the nation’s hard currency earnings.
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Soviet federal government’s regulations for Central Asian cotton production mostly bankrupted the region’s scarcest resource, water. Cotton utilizes about 3.5 acre feet of water per acre of plants, leading Soviet coordinators to divert ever-increasing volumes of water from the region’s two main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, into ineffective watering canals, leading to the dramatic shrinkage of the rivers’ final location, the Aral Sea. The Aral, as soon as the world’s fourth-largest inland sea with a location of 26,000 square miles, has shrunk to one-quarter its initial size in among the 20th century’s worst eco-friendly catastrophes.
And now, the dollars and cents. Dr. Bill Schillinger at Washington State University recently described camelina’s service model to Capital Press as: “At 1,400 pounds per acre at 16 cents a pound, camelina would generate $224 per acre; 28-bushel white wheat at $8.23 per bushel would amass $230.”
Central Asia has the land, the farms, the irrigation facilities and a modest wage scale in comparison to America or Europe – all that’s missing is the foreign investment. U.S. investors have the money and access to the know-how of America’s land grant universities. What is certain is that biofuel‘s market share will grow with time; less specific is who will enjoy the advantages of establishing it as a feasible issue in Central Asia.
If the current past is anything to pass it is not likely to be American and European investors, fixated as they are on Caspian oil and gas.
But while the Japanese flight experiments show Asian interest, American financiers have the academic expertise, if they are ready to follow the Silk Road into developing a new market. Certainly anything that decreases water usage and pesticides, diversifies crop production and enhances the great deal of their agrarian population will get most careful consideration from Central Asia’s federal governments, and farming and grease processing plants are not just more affordable than pipelines, they can be built quicker.
And jatropha curcas‘s biofuel capacity? Another story for another time.