Encouraging Progress for D1 Oils

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Thursday, October 02, 2008

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Encouraging Progress for D1 Oils

UK - British company D1 Oils has announced that it has delivered its first crude jatropha oil - approximately 1,000 tonnes this year.

In the company's interim report fro the first six months of the year, D1 Oils said it raised £14.9 million in May which has allowed the company to remain cash positive until the end of next year.

The company has planted 257,370 hectares of jatropha so far this year and expects to reach 300,000 hectares by the end of the year.

Elliott Mannis, Chief Executive Officer, said: "The first six months of 2008 have seen encouraging progress in our upstream operations, now the exclusive focus of the business.

"We have delivered our first crude jatropha oil from our plantations, and production is expected to be approximately 1,000 tonnes in 2008. Based on the Board's revised business plan, the funds raised of £14.9 million in May 2008 are expected to allow the Company to remain cash positive through to the end of 2009."

Lord Oxburgh of Liverpool, Non-Executive Chairman, added: "As a leader in jatropha plant science and a significant grower of jatropha through our joint venture with BP, D1 is well positioned to supply a global biofuels market that increasingly favours fuels that are both sustainable and competitive.

"Encouraging progress has been made in both plant science and planting during the last six months, and we are pleased to have demonstrated through the delivery of our first crude vegetable oil the potential of jatropha as a biofuel crop."

The company said that its aim is to is to develop new energy crops into sustainable commercial fuels and provide technology and services for the breeding, development, planting and harvesting of new varieties of commercial biofuel crops, focusing on alternative, sustainable feedstocks that are not subject to the same price pressures as food-grade crops.

TheBioenergySite News Desk