UK Supermarket Giant Tesco to Build Biodiesel Plant with Cargill, Greenergy

1/3/06 (Financial Times UK) -Tesco will announce plans to build a factory to make diesel from home-grown crops. The bio-diesel factory, one of the first in the UK, will be completed by the end of this year and will produce 114m litres of bio-diesel each year. Tesco is building the Pounds 13.5m plant at Immingham in Humberside with Cargill, the US agricultural giant, and Greenergy, a renewable energy company.

David Reid, chairman of Tesco, will announce the company's investment in the plant at the National Farmers' Union conference in Birmingham today.

Tesco will start selling the bio-diesel at 150 of its petrol stations, with the majority of the product coming from the new plant and the remainder made up of imports.

At present very little bio-diesel is sold in the UK and most of it comes from overseas.

Bio-diesel made from oil-bearing plants is a substitute for diesel made conventionally from fossil fuels. Bio-fuels made from plants are considered a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions because the plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow.

Tesco is already active in other forms of bio-fuels, selling bio-ethanol made from sugar at 185 of its petrol stations.