Every time dentist Anthony Goh wants to fill up his 70-litre diesel truck, he has only two pump stations to choose from.
They’re located in Tuas and Ang Mo Kio industrial estates, and going there can be a hassle as he lives in Holland Grove.
On top of it, the 43-year-old - whose Mercedes Benz truck runs solely on biodiesel made from waste cooking oil - can get fuel only five days a week as the pump stations are not open on weekends.
‘When I hit the half-tank mark, I make time to go down to the pump so I don’t have to worry about running low on the weekend,’ said the dentist who works at Mount Alvernia Hospital. He had opted to use the fuel for environmental reasons.
‘No one offers to clean my windscreen, and I don’t get credit card discounts. But in the end, it is about the feel-good factor you get from helping save the environment.’
The fuel, made from used cooking oil collected from restaurants and hawker centres here, burns more cleanly than fossil fuels, and has much less harmful emissions such as carbon monoxide, and sulphur oxides and sulphates, which are major components of acid rain. It is also unlike other biofuels made from crops grown on land that would probably otherwise be used for growing food.
It is also slightly cheaper than commercial fuel at $1.40 per litre, compared with commercial diesel at about $1.60.
Yet despite the benefits, Mr Goh is among a small number of consumers who have chosen to use the fuel.
Demand at Alpha Biofuels, which operates the two pump stations here and is the only firm producing the fuel for the domestic market, has dived in the past year. Its chief executive Allan Lim, 38, said it now tops up 200 tanks weekly, down from 1,000 in 2009. It had eight pump stations that year, but started to shut them down from June last year. ‘We believed Singaporeans would embrace our environmentally-friendly business, but we were wrong. Most will not go out of their way to buy the product.’
Apart from limited pump stations, there were also other challenges, such as competition from suppliers selling industrial diesel for as low as $1.20 per litre.
‘We were bleeding money, and we had to increase prices by 20 per cent last year. We lost even more customers then,’ said Mr Lim, who added that business is only lucrative if used oil was given to them for free or at a token sum. He now makes ends meet by selling the fuel in bulk to construction and transport companies.
It is not the only company forced to look elsewhere. Cooking-oil recycler pioneer Biofuel Research was set up in 2003 and primarily produces biodiesel from waste cooking oil and by-products from Malaysian palm refineries for export to countries like Denmark and India. It tried selling the fuel to consumers three years ago, but stopped after six months.
Said its manager Kom Mum Sun, 37: ‘We delivered it, and people could also fill up their own tanks in Tuas. But it was just not profitable. Consumers were not educated about biodiesel, the location of the pump was a problem and people were just not bothered.’
Consumers like Mohammed Fadzil, 30, who was using biodiesel, cite several reasons for stopping. The civil servant started using the green fuel four years back and noticed cleaner exhaust fumes. But he switched back to regular diesel last year:’I stopped because the pumps were open at irregular hours. I also wasn’t sure about the source of the used oil. It might have come from a non-halal restaurant.’
The waste-oil movement is global. In Britain, for instance, thousands of people are thought to be running their cars on such fuel, made in their own backyards.
Industry watchers like market research firm Frost and Sullivan’s Mr Satish Lele however, do not think that the fuel is likely to take off on a massive scale here.
Said the firm’s Asia-Pacific vice-president for industrial technologies: ‘Only a very small percentage of people will take to such a product here, and a proper supply chain has to be set up. It will also be difficult to remain competitive, especially when commercial diesel prices go down.’
