First Pan-African Biofuels Event Sells Out

Green Power Conferences’ inaugural Biofuels Markets Africa conference took place on Thursday 30th November and Friday 1st December 2006 in Cape Town.

With 200 attendees, the event was highly interactive and provided an excellent networking platform, with attendees taking away many new business contacts and ideas. Despite an over busy conference room the first day due to higher than expected numbers the event was still rated as Excellent or Good by 80% of attendees.

The key topic issues arising across the two days were related to government policy and incentives to support and promote investment and development in the market, production quality standards, the land and labour potential that Africa has for Biofuels, the food vs. fuel debate and opportunities under the CDM.

“Southern Africa has the potential to be the Middle East of Biofuels” stated Andrew Owens, Chief Executive Officer of Greenergy early in the conference proceedings.  This upbeat view of the potential for Biofuels in Africa was mirrored by many speakers at the conference, although many noted that the policy environment also needs to be right.  In this respect the event was well timed in South Africa as the government task force had presented their latest findings with regards to Biofuels policy in South Africa to cabinet earlier in the week of the conference.  Next years event will be well positioned to provide an opportunity to review the impacts of new policies arising from this task force review.

The market for carbon mitigation projects under the UN CDM in Africa was also discussed as this is now starting to develop and it was felt by many that there are big opportunities in the area for 2007 and beyond. In line with Green Power's company ethics and goal to be a carbon neutral company, Biofuels Markets Africa was run on 100% renewable energy generated by the bioenergy plant at Illovo Sugar's Umzimkulu Mill.

Feedback from Attendees

“Very useful to interact & gain knowledge from the region” (DL, Ethanol Company Malawi)
“The event was well attended and successful” (GM, Agama Energy)
“There is a lot more happening in Africa than I expected” (GL, Sappi)
“Content was very good” (GL, Marsh Vikela)
“It was a very rewarding experience” (YA, Energy Commission of Nigeria)
“I really enjoyed the conference; I want to congratulate the organisers for doing a great job from your side" (AS, CleanHeat)

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the event sponsors, EcoSecurities, Wartsila and Louis Dreyfus Commodities and to thank the Southern African Biofuel Association and REEEP for their support of the event.

To receive advance notice of next year's dates and venue once available, please contact: Annie Ellis at annie.ellis@greenpowerconferences.com with "Biofuels Markets Africa" in the subject line.

Articles written at the event by Cape Argus
International Lessons for SA (word file)
Pan African Facilitation of Biofuels Development (word file)