The National Environment Agency's (NEA) consultation with the auto and transport industries should not be taken as a prelude to promoting biofuel as a fuel for vehicles ("Govt mulls over biofuel option at the pumps"; last Thursday).

The consultation exercise was part of NEA's review of fuel quality standards.

NEA announced in March last year that fuel quality regulations would be tightened to improve tailpipe emissions, with standards that were benchmarked against the Euro V specifications.

In line with that, we are studying the need for regulations of other parameters that could have an impact on vehicles' performance, including a limit on the amount of biofuels that could be added into fuels.

For example, in the European Union, there is a limit of 7 per cent for biofuel in diesel.

NEA also notes that biofuel can be derived from various sources and include feedstocks such as agricultural waste and waste cooking oil.

Cheang Kok Chung
Director
Environmental Protection Policy and International Relations
National Environment Agency