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Published on October 24, 2007

Khayan Wiphromchai, mayor of Umong municipality in Lamphun's Muang district, said yesterday the experiment had saved the community Bt660,000 on fuel.

"Our community's biodiesel centre produced 25,000 litres of biodiesel over the past year, enough to fill all 10 municipality trucks with some left over - 4,884 litres, in fact - to sell to the general public," he said.

The municipality had produce biodiesel from cooking oil from community households and restaurants as well as a potato-chip factory in the area.

"The biodiesel price is Bt23 a litre, which is cheaper than the market price of diesel of Bt28 per litre. It can be used for both general diesel trucks and cars, as well as agricultural machines. We regularly check the quality of our biodiesel product and everything is meeting standards," he added.

Based on this success, Khayan said the municipality was planning to increase production to 350 litres a day soon in order to supply biodiesel for local consumption.

Suriya Thasurin

The Nation, Lamphun