Ethanol is often seen as the solution to the present difficulties being faced by Mauritius. It will be on the market as from this week. In fact, a mixture of ethanol and petrol will be tried out on 25 cars selected to form part of the testing fleet. For three months, these vehicles will run on a mixture of 90% petrol and 10% ethanol without any changes being made to thier engines. If the results are positive, ethanol will be available for all drivers whi wish to economise on fuel as wall as reducing the amount of pollution their cars generate.

In view of the worrying increase in the price of petrol on the international market over the past few months, the appearance of ethanol is most welcome. It seems unlikely that this upward trend will change in the near future and there is a need to try and find ways of reducing the petrol bill on a national scale. Ethanol may be a good way of achieving this objective.

The tests will be done by Alcodis with the collaboration of Total who have great experience in the field worldwide. The first petrol pump to supply E10 to customers is Rainbow station, located in the newly inaugurated Total petrol station on the M1 motorway in Bell-Village. This petrol station recently began operating under the Total sign after the merger between Esso and Total.

<B>Imported ethanol</B>

Even though Alcodis has the capacity to produce ethanol for the whole country, the ethanol used for the testing period has actually been imported from Europe. The ethanol produced by Alcodis is said to be dehydrated at 96.4% while the European variety is dehydrated at 99.99%. However the company is making the necessary investment to be able to dehydrate its ethanol at the right rate to be used in cars.

In the future, the ethanol used for local consumption could still be imported from Europe while Alcodis would only produce for export. For the moment, however, Alcodis is only authorised to produce ethanol from molasses, which limits its production capacity. It is only if the law allows it to produce ethanol directly from sugar that its production capacity will become far more important and will then allow the company to export in very large quantities.

Mauritian ethanol is presently subject to advantages on the European market. Thanks to Mauritius? belonging to the African Caribbean and Pacific countries, it benefits from a duty-free entrance onto the European market. It would be a pity not to fully seize the opportunity?