12.10.1

2007

China has 57 million hectares of marginal lands, of which 15% could be used to cultivate energy crops and plantations (www. cmes. kib. ac. cn).

• As part of the 11th 5-Year Plan, China’s State Forestry Administration signed an agreement in 2007 with the oil company PetroChina to develop jointly two J. curcas plantation bases in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, with biofuel production capacities of 10 000-30 000 tonnes each and a combined area of more than 200 000 hectares.

• On 6 April 2007 they signed a similar agreement with China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO), China’s largest oils and food importer and exporter, and a leading food manufacturer, ambitious to be a leading participant in J. curcas energy forest production. COFCO would invest in energy forest as a demonstration project to produce at least 20 000 tonnes per year of liquid biofuel in Guizhou province.

• CNOOC invested 2.3 billion Yuan to develop 33 000 hectares of J. curcas forest in Panzhihua, Sichuan province.

• Yunan Shengyu New Energy Company plans to develop J. curcas forest on more than 150 000 hectares in Yunnan province. The project started in 2007 with a total investment of 90 million Yuan. As a first step, Shengyu established 20 000 hectares of energy forests and the construction of a millwork plant.

After 5 years of growing time we can expect that the first big world crop of crude Jatropha oil will come from these plantations in 2014.

12.10.2