"Winding-up order filed against NFL unit(SINGAPORE) One of...

"Winding-up order filed against NFL unit

(SINGAPORE) One of Singapore's first-generation biofuel producers, Natural Fuel Pte Ltd, is in trouble. A winding-up order has been filed in the High Court by Rotary Engineering against the local subsidiary of Australian-listed Natural Fuel Ltd (NFL).

A manager of Natural Fuel Pte Ltd - which is in receivership - declined to comment yesterday when asked whether the company's US$130 million biofuel plant on Jurong Island is still operating.

The manager, who identified himself as Mr Chew, would only say: 'We are still here.' The plant's general manager, Ubbo von Oehsen, was no longer in Singapore, he said.

According to earlier reports, the plant, which was completed in late-2007, was running at just 10 per cent capacity last year as high prices for palm oil - its main raw material - affected margins.

In December last year, Ibrahim Risjad, chairman of Australian-listed NFL, said at at its annual general meeting that the Singapore plant looked set to finally make its first commercial deliveries to an Asian customer. 'There has been positive development in our marketplace and the basic assumptions of our business model have now returned to levels that will enable Natural Fuel to commence economic biodiesel production,' he said then.

'I look forward to our executive management team delivering, within coming months, the first commercial batch of biodiesel from our Singapore subsidiary to our first customer in the Asian region.

'The entry of Indonesia's Risjadson Group as a shareholder of NFL will also help.'

Earlier touted to become the world's biggest biodiesel facility, the Jurong plant apparently progressed to building, at most, its first phase of 600,000 tonnes' capacity. NFL's plan was for three phases of equal size, which would have brought capacity to 1.8 million tonnes by 2012.

This compares with Neste Oil's $1.2 billion second-generation biofuel now being built at Tuas, which when ready next year, will be able to produce 800,000 tonnes of biofuel at the outset. The Finnish project - which has the advantage of advanced, second-generation technology to produce biodiesel - is on schedule, industry sources say.

As for Natural Fuel, when BT contacted Dr Ubbo earlier this year, he declined to say whether the Singapore plant had made its first commercial delivery.

In July, BT reported that mainboard-listed Federal International's Banyan Utilities - intended to cater to Natural Fuel's utilities needs - had joined the electricity market here.

But there was no indication then whether Banyan Utilities - which can produce up to five MW of electricity and 45 tonnes of steam per hour - had started supplying Natural Fuel."