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Business Using Jatropha Seedlings to Produce Biodiesel Fuel (BDF)

2009-06-10

Toyota Tsusho has made a capital investment in JOIL (S) Pte. Ltd.(hereinafter “JOIL”; Headquarters: Singapore), a company involved in the research and sale of plant materials used to produce biofuels. In the future, Toyota Tsusho will continue to expand its jatropha biofuel business in the Asian, African and Central and South American regions. Toyota Tsusho has been proactive to date in the BDF industry by participating in the development of more efficient and high quality BDF production processes. In the BDF industry, over half of the costs incurred are from raw materials, and it is often said that a stable, low-cost supply of non-food raw materials is crucial for the long-term survival of the industry. For this reason, in the advancement of its BDF business Toyota Tsusho has been trying to secure a biofuel that would achieve such a goal.

Jatropha is attracting attention as a non-food plant with seeds that produce high quality oil. The tree is easy to manage even outside a plantation environment, and as such, it has high potential as a low-cost, environmentally friendly biofuel of the future. To this end, Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory Ltd. (TLL), a research laboratory affiliated with the Singapore Government, has been working to improve jatropha and has developed the tissue culture to mass produce an improved variety. Toyota Tsusho aims to efficiently manage, expand and develop the business so that one day the plantations become the equivalent of an oil field (i.e., a “bio-oil field”*). Further, with the aim of establishing a stable supply of environmentally friendly next-generation BDF, Toyota Tsusho will further its development efforts to construct a value chain running from the procurement of raw materials right through to the final supply of biofuel.
*“Bio-oil field” is a registered trademark of Toyota Tsusho Corporation.

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