China is moving swiftly to convert cooking waste oil into vehicle fuel amid surging food safety concerns over recycled oil and demand for carbon emissions reduction.
The Shanghai branch of Sinopec, China’s national oil refinery, on Tuesday inaugurated facilities to produce and channel the B5 new fuel, a biofuel made from recycled cooking oil, commonly known as "gutter oil".
Three months ago, the company vowed to expand more refinery bases to process recycled cooking oil and increase collect-process-sell chains to deal with thousands of tons of gutter oil in Shanghai.
In 2016, the company started fueling vehicles in Shanghai with B5 composed of five percent biodiesel and 95 percent diesel to cut carbon emissions.
Last month, over 3,000 vehicles ran on 40,000 tons of B5 biofuel. Thirty-five gas stations are in service, a sign of strong public support, after Shanghai authorities stepped up efforts to pilot B5 projects in late 2017.
