PTT group develops "green investment" in Thailand

BANGKOK, May 20 (TNA) - A subsidiary of PTT Public Company Limited (PTT), Thailand's largest petroleum firm, is speedily studying an initiative to expand its "green investment" in the country. Nuttachat Charuchinda, chief operations officer of PTT’s Downstream Petroleum Business Group, told journalists on Monday that a green business will be developed on a land plot of 1,500 rai or 2.4 square kilometers in the Asia Industrial Estate in Thailand's eastern Rayong province. Nuttachat said that the green initiative concerns bioplastic production which will use sugarcane, sugar, cassava and oil palm as raw materials. Nuttachat acknowledged that Thai Energy Minister Pongsak Raktapongpaisal has ordered PTT Group to also speed up a project to produce bio-hydrogenated diesel (BHD), which increases cetane and the content of palm oil, and that the project will cost about 15 billion baht and have the production capacity of 400 million liters annually. For the sustainability of BHD, the PTT chief operations officer noted, PTT has proposed a joint venture through a public organization in which local farmers are invited to co-invest to secure the supply of palm; while they will receive higher incomes. According to the PTT chief operations officer, the project will solve the problem of palm oversupply and boost domestic consumption of renewable energy. (TNA)