HARARE - Zimbabwe is to recommission an ethanol plant and resume research into the use of vegetable oils to boost its transport fuel supplies, the official Herald newspaper said on Monday.
Zimbabwe is experiencing its worst fuel crisis in years with gasoline filling stations remaining dry for weeks, forcing many urban commuters to walk to and from work. The fuel crisis has also affected the manufacturing sector and annual tobacco sales.
"The ministry is aiming at producing fossil fuel substitutes from ethanol blending, castor and soya beans, livestock feeds ... rape and sunflower seeds," the state-owned Herald quoted Energy and Power Development Minister Mike Nyambuya as saying.
Zimbabwe abandoned the production of ethanol in 1992 following a severe drought.
Ethanol, which can be produced through fermentation from various agricultural crops including sugar cane, was used to blend gasoline from the late 1970s when the then white-minority government had difficulties in obtaining fossil fuel because of economic sanctions.
Zimbabwe has vast sugarcane fields in the southern part of the country owned by Anglo American Corp and Tongaat-Hullet.
It is not clear whether the government would proceed with the recommissioning project on its own or in partnership with Anglo American, which owned the ethanol plant in Zimbabwe's southern area of Triangle.
Anglo American has had parts of its sugar estates confiscated by the government under its controversial land reform programme. The Herald said the government would also resume research into bio-diesel, but gave no time frame.
The use of vegetable oils as a diesel substitute was researched in the 1970s and 1980s, but abandoned after it was discovered that the country could export vegetable oil seed and use the proceeds to import diesel.
Zimbabwe requires 2.5 million litres of diesel and 2 million litres of fuel every day, but imports have been erratic since 1999 amid foreign currency shortages due to poor exports.
The fuel crunch has hit key annual tobacco sales, which traditionally account for a third of Zimbabwe's export earnings, while farmers are struggling to deliver their crop to auctions.
The fuel woes have exacerbated the economic crisis gripping the southern African state, shown in food shortages, record unemployment and one of the highest rates of inflation in the world.
President Robert Mugabe, 81, and and in power since independence from Britain in 1980, denies he has mismanaged the economy.
He instead charges it has been sabotaged by local and international opponents over his government's seizure of white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
