KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's smallest oil company today launched the first commercial biofuel to hit the nation's service station forecourts - a petrol blended with ethanol made from milk.
Gull's Force 10 biofuel is a blend of premium petrol containing 10 per cent ethanol produced by dairy cooperative Fonterra.
Prime Minister Helen Clark, who poured the first biofuel at today's Auckland launch, congratulated Gull on leading the pack.
She said: "Gull's new fuel provides motorists with real choice, helps New Zealand to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and takes New Zealand a step further towards achieving sustainability."
She said the biofuel obligation on fuel companies would reduce New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions by more than a million tonnes between 2008 and 2012.
Biofuel is any fuel derived from biomass, recently living organisms or their metabolic byproducts, such as manure, forest or crop waste, or even pond scum.
In February the Government set a national target of 3.4 per cent for the biofuel component of petrol and diesel in 2012.
Oil companies will have to start offering biofuels from April 1 next year, and the Government has said there will be no excise tax charged on the ethanol.
Fonterra's Edgecumbe dairy factory in the Bay of Plenty successfully tested petrol mixed with 10 per cent ethanol in a 1.8-litre car.
The Edgecumbe plant produces 30,000 litres of ethanol a day and over five million litres in a dairy season. Fonterra also produces ethanol at other plants, including Reporoa and Tirau, for use in industrial cleansers, vodka and gin.
The blend was approved by the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma).
Gull - a family-owned operation with 30 petrol stations in the North Island - signed on Fonterra in 2004 to produce ethanol to be added to "premium" petrol. Blending of petrol and ethanol will take place at Mt Maunganui.
It will be pitched to New Zealand drivers of recently-imported vehicles wanting to run the family car on a "green" fuel, according to the general manager of Gull New Zealand Dave Bodger.
The Force 10 fuel will initially be sold at Gull forecourts in Albany, Kingsland, and Wiri, and will later be rolled out to most of its 30 sites.
- NZPA
