The Hanoitimes - Vietnam will start blending bio-fuels with petrol o­n a large scale to power road vehicles from 2014, as the Government seeks to push ahead with its commitment to establish green credentials.

According to a new roadmap issued by Government leader Nguyen Tan Dung, seven cities and provinces throughout the country including Hanoi, central Da Nang City and HCM City will take the lead in the bio-fuel development programme, which will contribute to safeguarding the nation's energy supplies and environment. The programme, to be applied for producers and suppliers of petrol for road vehicles, is planned to be rolled out nationwide by the end of 2015.

Vietnam has built six ethanol production plants in key manioc growing areas in the central region, with a combined capacity of 550 million litres per year.

Three of these plants are owned by the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PVN).

It's been reported that the plants are able to supply 300,000 cubic metres of ethanol per year, enough to blend 6 million cubic metres of E5 bio-fuel, which would cover 94% of the country's predicted petrol demand in 2014.

Vietnam has boosted investment in developing bio-fuels in recent years, however o­ne of the biggest difficulties has been attracting petrol agents to sell bio-fuel.

A Hanoi petrol station owner, who wished to remain anonymous, said he would have to invest tens of millions of dong to build an E5 pumping pillar and a tank. But he indicated that he would be willing to do so if he received the State's support.

Recently, the Hanoi Science and Technology University found that E5 was safe for road vehicle engines and did not require a change to the vehicles' composition or parts. The use of E5 would help improve the engine's capacity and reduce HC and CO emissions.

To ensure continuous production, the PVN's enterprises have to sell ethanol to some other countries including the Philippines, South Korea and China at a loss.

To turn the plan into a reality o­n time, the Government and its related agencies need to provide solutions for promoting demand and creating a step by step process to reduce losses for the producers and to safeguard the environment.