Accordingly, to end of 2011, the country will have four ethanol fuel manufacturing facilities in operation with the design capacity of 300,000 tons per year, enough to produce about 6 million tons of E5 petrol to serve domestic consumption.

Vietnam Oil and Gas Group alone has now 35 E5 stores in six large provinces and cities nationwide. E5 petrol consumption during the trial time, from Aug 2010 to Jan 2011, reached over 420 thousand m3.

Cassava is the raw material to produce biofuel in Vietnam. However, according to Dr. Nguyen Phu Cuong, Deputy Director of Science and Technology (Ministry of Industry and Trade), although Vietnam has over 1 million tons of cassava for export every year, which fully meets the needs for raw materials to produce biofuel in the country, but in future, it is necessary to find other sources of cheap and available raw materials, such as agricultural and forestry waste or residues, algae biomass ... to avoid affecting food security.

By Duc Minh