EFFICIENCY OF SOYBEAN PRODUCTION AS AN ALTERNATIVE SOURCE OF BIOFUEL IN THE ENERGY MARKET

Active management in the oil and gas industry needs to take in account knowledge not only aboutfossil fuels but also various types of alternative fuels like biofuels. This thesis goal is to analyze the economics ofproducing Bio-Crude oil from a plant called Jatrophae curcadis, (or also known as “purging nut”). It is nowadaysgrowing around subtropical regions of the North American continent, especially in Mexico, and southern Asia, andwith lower yield can grow even in arid wastelands of Central Asia (in arid Mali it is grown to hold wildlife fromplants). It is the very undemanding plant so the biofuel produced from it can be very cheap compared to otherbiofuels.Biofuels are viewed as a possible fuel of the future. Concerning energy for cars there is intense “competition”stemming from electricity and rising in popularity due to modern research is also hydrogen. In general, biofuels arenowadays strongly supported in the European Union as well as in the United States of America and many otherregions of the world.The oil produced from this plant is not being traded on commodities markets yet but is viewed as biofuel of thefuture as currently sold soybean oil and palm oil are according to my analysis more expensive in many areas of theworld. Production of the plant seeds (nuts) when pressed leads to bio-crude oil which can be processed to biocrude.Economic analysis showed that given irrigation and good genetic selection of the plants to give higherproduction of seeds (price of the kg would be determining factor), the biocrude produced from the seeds has thepotential to successfully compete with alternative fuels made from soybean or palm oils.