Repsol YPF Heads Bio-diesel Research Project

::    Repsol YPF will head the business consortium conducting the
      project, which will comprise 15 Spanish companies from
      various sectors.

::    This venture receives financial support from the state as a CENIT
      (Centre for Innovation in Transport) programme, granted for large-
      scale projects deemed strategic for the future and of international projection.

::    It will be possible to cut the production cost of bio-diesel, while reducing carbon
      emissions and dependence on imported oil products.

::    Repsol YPF is one of the world's largest producers of bio-fuel.

::    The Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce, via the Centre for Technological
      and Industrial Development (CDTI in Spanish), has granted a subsidy of
      over EUR22 million to a group of companies, headed by Repsol YPF, for a large-
      scale four-year research and development project on bio-diesel.

This CENIT bio-diesel project will make it possible to develop technology that will aid in the reduction of the greenhouse gases causing climate change and foment the diversification of energy sources in order to reduce our dependence on imported oil products. The objective is to contribute to the introduction of bio-diesel in the domestic market through an R+D programme focused on cutting production costs and increasing the supply of local feedstock necessary for obtaining bio-fuels.

Repsol YPF heads this venture, accompanied by another fourteen Spanish companies, leaders of various industrial sectors: Acciona Biocombustibles, Biogas Fuel Cell, Bionor, Elcogas, Facet Ibérica, Guascor, Koipesol Semillas, I.Q. Lasem , Robert Bosch España, Sacyr, Industrias Suescum, Técnicas Reunidas, Tiffel, and Cooperativa Agrícola Valparaíso.

The project involves the whole bio-diesel value chain, understood as a series of products derived from vegetable or animal feedstock, that may be used as a substitute for or supplement to automotive diesel or heating gas-oil.

In the first stage of the project, the consortium will research and identify new types of feedstock for the production of bio-diesel, especially fatty materials from Spanish abattoirs and adequately treated frying oil, among others. Simultaneously, new technological processes will be developed to adapt these new materials to the energy production process.

CENIT Bio-diesel has been included in the first concourse of awards granted by the CENIT Programme to stimulate public and private cooperation in RD+i (research, development and innovation) in Spain, and forms part of the government's INGENIO 2010 (2010 Ingeniousness) subsidies for large-scale projects deemed strategic for the future and of international projection.

In taking this new step, Repsol YPF has confirmed its commitment to the environment and the incentivation of biodiversity, and strengthened the company's strategy of innovation in the bio-fuel sector.

In addition, Repsol YPF recently announced the largest agreement in the world for the production of bio-diesel, subscribed with Acciona, to place over one million tons of this production on the market before 2010, thus becoming one of the world's largest producers of bio-fuels.

This agreement, involving an investment estimated at over EUR300 million, contemplates the construction of up to six bio-diesel production plants scheduled to go on stream between the first half of 2007 and the second half of 2009.

These plants will be fed with unused vegetable oils, making it possible to comply with nearly half Spain's objective for bio-fuels as stipulated in the National Plan of Renewable Energies for 2010. It is estimated that the production volumes foreseen under this agreement would prevent the emission to air of some 3 million tons of carbon dioxide in that year.

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Posted 27/04/06

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