Austrian company to produce biological diesel oilin E. China city

Austrian company Biolux on Tuesday started construction on a wholly-owned project to produce biological diesel oil in Nantong City, east China's Jiangsu Province.

According to Veit Schalle, chairman of Biolux, the 120 million euros project is the largest-ever agricultural project invested by Austrian companies in China.

The project will process degummed rapeseed oil into biological diesel, a kind of environment-friendly energy source, with a designed annual production capacity of one million tons.

Construction on the first-phase of the project will be completed by the end of 2007, with an annual production capacity of 265,000 tons through processing 700,000 tons of rapeseed.

Located on the bank of the Yangtze River, the new plant covers an area of 200,000 square meters.

Its products will be sold to EU countries and other international markets, sources said.

According to an agreement signed by Biolux and local agricultural bureau, Nantong will provide 325,000 ha of rapeseed for the project every year.

China's is the world's largest rapeseed production base, and nearly three-fourths of its rapeseed grows in the drainage basin of the Yangtze River.

"The project is the fruit of cooperation between China and Austria in the fields of economy policies, environment protection and development of energy resources," said Hubert Gorbach, vice-chancellor of the Austrian government, during his visit to the city.

With development of the new energy resource, the market for biological diesel oil in European countries will become larger and larger, he said, calling for more investment from Austrian companies in China.

Source: Xinhua