The Company is planting Jatropha curcas in rural Thailand for the production of Jatropha oil - the widely acknowledged premium oil source for biodiesel and biojet aviation fuel. Over the next four years Curcas Energy plans to plant more than 500 million trees which will, at full production, generate one million barrels of oil per year on a sustained basis.
In Thailand the Company operates by contract growing Jatropha through local companies. When fully implemented there will be more than two hundred thousand growers planting hedges around fields or in small areas of land mostly unsuitable for food crops. Over the past few months the Company has planted over 10 million trees. It has now established an extensive organisation with over one hundred trained advisers, which will rise to more than three hundred during 2010, who are engaged in contracting many thousands of growers in North and East Thailand.
The Company has 10 hectares of industrial land at Khon Kaen as the site of its first oil extraction and dense wood pellet production complex.
Curcas Energy Ltd is a public company which plans to list on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2010. It has more than 50 shareholders who have privately funded the company’s development. The funds raised on listing will be applied to bringing the Khon Kaen facilities into production.
A final round of pre-IPO funding is underway to expand the planting programme, obtain construction and environmental approvals and prepare the prospectus for the IPO.
The company is operating among some of the poorest rural communities in Asia and the impact of the successful development of the business plan will have very significant economic and social benefits to large numbers of rural families and communities.