1,000x growth in biofuels: Inside a Dubai used-cooking-oil diesel plant
In 2010, Neutral Fuels started converting 50 litres of used cooking oil with one employee in a small plant to fuel up McDonalds delivery trucks. Now they’re producing up to 1.5 million litres a month in 4 locations, employing hundreds. Their biodiesel is used to fuel up hundreds of trucks, even sea-going vessels.
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#UAE #biofuels #oil
In 2010, Neutral Fuels started converting 50 litres of used cooking oil with one employee in a small plant to fuel up McDonalds delivery trucks. Now they’re producing up to 1.5 million litres a month in 4 locations, employing hundreds. Their biodiesel is used to fuel up hundreds of trucks, even sea-going vessels.
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
#UAE #biofuels #oil
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NewsTranscript
00:00Good day, everyone. Thanks for watching. We have here Carl W. Feilder, who's the chairman
00:13of the Neutral Fuels Group based in Dubai. Thanks, Carl, for joining us. Why don't you
00:17walk us through your journey as an entrepreneur?
00:21At the end of 2006, I decided that just making money out of tech startups was really not
00:27very useful when it comes to trying to help the planet. I really needed to focus the rest
00:32of my time, the rest of my entrepreneurial effort, on working out ways of bridging that
00:37gap between sustainable technologies and these huge organizations that need to use them.
00:43And we formed the business and Neutral Group at the end of 2006. In 2010, we put together
00:49Neutral Fuels after we'd worked with McDonald's for a while and looked at their strategy.
00:54And we found that they could be self-sufficient in fuel if only they could cover all of their
00:59waste cooking oil into biofuel. So we started working with them. That then led to a lot
01:04of other companies. This year, we've started supplying Adnok as well as Enoch. We've had
01:08an Enoch relationship for about five years. But we're now supplying Adnok as well for
01:13their offshore vessels, so going in ships for the first time. And in the last two years,
01:17we've seen massive increase in uptake of awareness of people wanting our fuel, people coming
01:23to us and asking to buy the fuel. We made the first biofuel in the Middle East ever
01:29in 2010. Since then, we've now got probably ten times more production capacity in the
01:36UAE. And we've certainly got a huge amount of capacity in the four plants that we've
01:40got up and running now. And we've been able to expand into other countries as well and
01:43take our know-how that we built here in the UAE and take it to those other countries and
01:48teach new people about this.
01:49What's your production rate now?
01:50In the UAE, we're producing over a million litres a month. Around the region, it's going
01:55to be more than double that by the end of this year. The growth is almost infinite in
02:00how much we can grow. If you think that in many more developed fuel markets like Europe
02:06and the States, they've mandated that you have to put biofuel into all fuel. Now, if
02:11we did that, we'd have to dramatically increase our production as well. I'm not looking for
02:15that. I'm trying to make the most difference that I can and innovate as much as I can so
02:20that we can show people that these things are possible.
02:22And certainly to take the example of neutral fuels, we took a technology that was pretty
02:28good from another country and we introduced it into a new market, modifying the business
02:34model and modifying the technology so that in a market that doesn't have any of the subsidies
02:40that existed in the overseas markets, and actually making it economically viable and
02:44profitable in a new market by modifying things. And that is one way that companies can quickly
02:51open up a new market. It's a branch of entrepreneurism and a method for branching into new markets.
02:57You started an oil business in one of the oil capitals of the world. Are you branching
03:03out to other areas?
03:05We've got four factories now. I'd like to be at 10 factories by the end of next year.
03:11My plan is to try and put a neutral fuels facility in every city that has more than
03:16a million people, because we've done the calculations, we've proved the economics now. If you have
03:22a million people, you have enough waste oil that you can justify having one of our factories,
03:29and that generates enough biofuel that you can then run your school buses, you can run
03:34your municipal trucks, you can run all sorts of things for just that city. So it's what
03:39we call the local, local, local strategy. Local sourcing of raw materials, local production
03:45and local sales. And that's being adopted by sustainable businesses all around the world,
03:51and it's a different way of working. But we'd like to do that in every city of more than
03:55a million people, and we think there's about 50 of those within four hours of here. So
04:00I think that there's still a lot of growth that we can achieve.
04:03What would you consider as your biggest challenge at the moment?
04:08The biggest issue that we face is actually awareness and education amongst the people
04:13that are running the truck and the bus fleets. Many of them have never seen biofuel before,
04:19and they don't seem to understand how easy it is to move over from running fossil fuels
04:24to running a sustainable fuel. It requires them to take what they might regard as a leap
04:29of faith. I would point out there's 30 years of proof. And indeed, in the UAE, if you've
04:35eaten anything from McDonald's in the last nine years, it's been delivered to that store
04:41using only our fuel. There's no fossil fuel at all. And if you've been able to eat your
04:47food there, then you've been the beneficiary of our fuel. So you don't really need to trust
04:51that much. But that education process, and people generally don't like change. I think
04:57they think, well, this works, and it means I can live my life and I don't have too many
05:02stresses. And I come along and say, yeah, but I want you to run a totally different
05:05fuel in your vehicles. And it'll be fine. Don't worry about it. Look at McDonald's,
05:10look at Del Monte, look at Nestle, look at Emirates Airline, who this week announced
05:14that they're using our fuel. Look at Adnok. They're buying our fuel from us. Look at Enoch.
05:18They're running it as well and selling it to their customers. And still people say to
05:21me, Carl, I want to test it because I'm not sure it works. That's my biggest challenge.
05:26In order to address the challenges that all of us face now, we have to use both halves
05:31of our brain. And I'm a great fan of trying to make everybody realize that this challenge
05:37that we have is both a serious challenge and something that we can overcome. So in addition
05:42to launching my book to tell other entrepreneurs how to do some of these things and encourage
05:48them to go into the sustainability space, I'm also launching an album of original music
05:53which will go on sale on the 24th of October. And that album is also promoting the book,
05:59is also promoting the idea of sustainability and entrepreneurism. I'm just trying to attack
06:04the market in every which way I can. Thankfully, I've got enough talents that I can pull together
06:09a musical album, I can pull together a book, and hopefully pull together a successful IPO.
06:15And all of these things bundled up together, that is Neutral Fuels.
06:18That's Carl Fylder, Chairman of the Neutral Group based in Dubai. Thanks for your time
06:27and really enjoy the conversation.
06:29Thanks, Jay. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.