KLM to fuel planes on refined Chinese cooking oil

The first 20 tonnes of processed waste oil refined from leftover Chinese cooking oil is en route to the Netherlands for further treatment into aviation fuel for KLM, the world’s first airline to adopt bio-fuel in June 2011.

The Qingdao-based Fresh Bio-Energy Technology Development Company Ltd. sold the oil to SkyBRG, a Dutch bio-fuel supplier, which has chosen to do the final processing itself rather than buy the finished product from China

“The 'non-edible oil' will become bio-diesel oil after the second process. Due to higher costs and other factors, the Dutch company did not purchase our final products," said Zheng Dehua, deputy general manager of the Chinese company Zheng said.

The Qingdao-based company produced the oil by combining waste oil and fat, including "gutter oil," or discarded cooking oil, after pretreating and distilling the substances, an earlier report quoted Zheng as saying.

The company has a capacity to annually produce 50,000 tonnes of biodiesel from gutter oil, according to Zheng.