Norwegian biofuels go to Ghana
Norway-based biofuels firm ScanFuel is due to begin a jatropha-based biodiesel production project outside Ghana's second largest city.
ScanFuel expects to start commercial operations in Kumasi, Ghana, early in 2009, producing 5,000 barrels a day of crude oil equivalent by 2015.
ScanFuel's operation will plant 10,000 hectares of the high oil-yielding jatropha plant, with another 10,000 hectares reserved for food production.
'By 2015 we intend to produce, when it comes to oil, roughly 300,000 tonnes of crude oil equivalent a year,' ScanFuel CEO Thor Hesselberg says.
ScanFuel Norway was co-founded by Hesselberg and three others in 2007.
Principal funding for the project has been provided by Norwegian entrepeneur Stale Kyllingstad and IKM Invest, which forms part of the large IKM Group in Norway that services the oil and gas industry.
ScanFuel's Ghanaian unit has contracted about 400,000 hectares, with up to 60% reserved for biofuel production, no less than 30% for food production and the remainder for biodiversity buffer zones.
Hesselberg has invested $4 million (€3.1 million) in seed funding for the project and received final approval last week from Ghana's government to proceed.
ScanFuel expects to start commercial operations in Kumasi, Ghana, early in 2009, producing 5,000 barrels a day of crude oil equivalent by 2015.
ScanFuel's operation will plant 10,000 hectares of the high oil-yielding jatropha plant, with another 10,000 hectares reserved for food production.
'By 2015 we intend to produce, when it comes to oil, roughly 300,000 tonnes of crude oil equivalent a year,' ScanFuel CEO Thor Hesselberg says.
ScanFuel Norway was co-founded by Hesselberg and three others in 2007.
Principal funding for the project has been provided by Norwegian entrepeneur Stale Kyllingstad and IKM Invest, which forms part of the large IKM Group in Norway that services the oil and gas industry.
ScanFuel's Ghanaian unit has contracted about 400,000 hectares, with up to 60% reserved for biofuel production, no less than 30% for food production and the remainder for biodiversity buffer zones.
Hesselberg has invested $4 million (€3.1 million) in seed funding for the project and received final approval last week from Ghana's government to proceed.
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