Mozambique: Biofuels’ use could boost domestic farmers, save foreign currency

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Mozambique: Biofuels’ use could boost domestic farmers, save foreign currency

2:18 CAT | 16 May 2025

Deputy National Director of Hydrocarbons and Fuels, at the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy, José Muhai [Photo: AIM]

The Mozambican government intends to reduce the levels of imports of petroleum products by mixing ethanol with gasoline and diesel, as part of the biofuels program, and updated the legislation in 2023, which advocates the need to boost domestic farmers, reduce foreign currency spending, save foreign currency.

“The aim of this biofuels programme is to ensure that 10% ethanol is mixed with petrol in the first phase, and then three percent diesel in the first phase, both with biodiesel,” said José Muhai, the deputy national director of Hydrocarbons and Fuels at the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy, on the sidelines of a seminar on biofuels focused on the ethanol industry in Mozambique in Maputo on Thursday (15-05).

Muhai said that the government expects to reduce the use of petrol by an average of 50,000 cubic metres and diesel by almost 45,000 cubic metres.

There are projects already in the feasibility study phase, he said, some of which are already in pilot projects for the production of these fuels and that others will focus on the use of copra, others on the use of jatropha and others on the use of molasses.

The deputy director of the National Institute of Standardization and Quality (INNOQ), Arlindo Mucone, said that the event aims to strengthen the institution’s commitment to sustainable development by promoting biofuels in Mozambique, creating more favourable conditions for the use of ethanol, both in clean cooking solutions and in mixtures with fossil fuels.

He noted that the country has favourable agro-geological conditions for the production of biofuels on a large scale, with emphasis on biodiesel from raw materials such as coconut.

“I think we also have fertile land for us to produce jatropha and ethanol that can be obtained from sugarcane, cassava and other agricultural products that are widely available in our country,” Muhai said.

Source: AIM Moçambique