8 July, 2008

D1 Oils welcomes Gallagher Review

Support for biofuel crops including Jatropha that make use of marginal land 

D1 Oils plc, the biofuels technology company, welcomes the findings of the Gallagher Review on the potential indirect impacts arising from biofuel production. Commenting on the findings of the review, Elliott Mannis, Chief Executive Officer of D1 Oils, said: 

"The Gallagher Review supports D1's strategy of developing sustainable biofuels from crops that can make use of idle and marginal land and that do not compete with food crops for high quality land. We are particularly pleased that Gallagher has acknowledged the potential importance of Jatropha curcas, the oilseed tree crop that can produce inedible oil suitable for biodiesel production from poor quality land. 

D1 has what we believe to be the world's leading plant science programme to select and breed high-yielding varieties of jatropha. We aim to enable developing world farmers to produce vegetable oil for biodiesel in commercial quantities from idle land that is not used for food production. Our joint venture with BP, D1-BP Fuel Crops, now has jatropha planting operations underway in Southern Africa, India and South East Asia. 

We are committed to making new crops like jatropha both economically sustainable, by developing varieties that can produce commercial yields from lower quality land, and environmentally sustainable, by ensuring that measures are in place to monitor direct and indirect land use. 

As Gallagher points out, sufficient land is available globally to produce both food and fuel. The key to ensuring that this happens is to raise yields and productivity from all agricultural production. We are confident that, as our research and planting move ahead, we will be able to demonstrate to future reviews by the Renewable Fuels Agency that jatropha is achieving its potential to deliver higher yields from marginal land."

Enquiries:

D1 Oils plc  

Graham Prince,          020 3043 8732

Director, Corporate Communications      07973 323840

Brunswick  

Kevin Byram/Michael Fuchs          020 7404 5959

Notes to Editors:

D1 Oils plc is a biofuels technology company. Our strategy is to develop new energy crops into sustainable commercial fuels. We provide technology and services for the breeding, development, planting and harvesting of new varieties of commercial biofuel crops, focusing on alternative, sustainable feedstocks that are not subject to the same price pressures as food-grade crops. We have an established plant science and planting programme for Jatropha curcas, a robust, tropical oilseed bearing tree. Jatropha produces inedible oil feedstock for biodiesel and is able to make use of land not suitable for arable agriculture. D1 has a 50:50 joint venture with BP for the global planting of jatropha. 

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