Tacloban City (November 5) -- The Philippines is capable of producing jatropha biodiesel that can pass international standards. This is the information received from the Philippine National Oil Company- Alternation Fuel Corporation.

This is good news especially in these times when the global price of fuel is continuously increasing.

The Technological University of the Philippines (TUP) specifically its Integrated Research and Training Center (IRTC) and Chemrez Technologies Inc., the country's leading producer of biofuels and environment-friendly industrial product, successfully converted oil from local jatropha seeds to a quality biodiesel.

A very important thing to note is that the seeds used were from the local jathropha variety, Engineer Philip Argamosa, IRTC Director, revealed.

The TUP extracted the oil from the jatropha seeds while Chemrez was responsible for the esterification process to convert the jatropha crude oil to jatropha methyl ester, commonly known as jatropha biodiesel.

The report stated that the properties of the jatropha biodiesel produced was within the specifications in EN 14214 (European Biodiesel Standards) and ASTMD 6751 (American Biodiesel Standards).

The PNOC-Alternative Fuels Corporation (PNOC-AFC), the biofuels arm of state-owned PNOC, provided the local jatropha seeds to TUP for oil extraction.

Peter Anthony A. Abaya, PNOC-AFC president and chief executive officer, underscored that this important break through will score out the reluctance by some sector on the properties of the jatropha as a biodiesel feedstock.

In a related development, IRTC Director Engr. Argamosa has confirmed the completion of a manual jatropha seed expeller that can be used with relative ease by farmers for oil extraction.