blending target of 10% (Sinkala, 2011b; Mtomba, 2011; Biofuels digest, 2011). South Africa has introduced a 2% mandate for bioethanol and 5% for biodiesel.

The Energy Regulations Board (ERB) of Zambia issued standards ZS E100 (for bioethanol) and ZS B100 (for biodiesel) in May 2008, and has put in place a biofuels framework with specific licenses for production/refining, storage facility, blending facility, distribution and retail (with on-site testing facilities). ERB has also introduced a captive license for own electricity generation. To help producers optimize their plans and production systems and to minimize their start-up costs for agro-suitability assessments, the Zambian government sought help of the Brazilian government to undertake a feasibility study for biofuels and food production in Zambia (FGV Projetos, 2011). A number of private companies explored production of biodiesel in Zambia including Zampalm focusing on oil palm in Mpika district in Muchinga Province, at an estimated investment of US$41 million<sup>2</sup> , and Man Ferrostaal specializing in Jatropha in Mpika at an estimated investment of US$500 million<sup>3</sup> , and Kaidi Biomass Zambia Limited which targeted multiple biofuels feedstocks in several parts of Zambia at an estimated investment of US$6 billion<sup>4</sup> . The latter has pulled out investment from the country because of the Zambian government’s decision to initially sub-lease 4,000 hectares instead of the total of about 80,000 hectares identified for the project<sup>5</sup> . In the early stages of the industry, foreign companies including D1 and Oval biofuels were also active, largely through outgrower systems. The companies have since folded up largely due to the 2009 economic turmoil. Some small to medium scale producers today make up the largest area of production around 10,000 hectares.

For ethanol, the likely turn-key production can come from existing sugar producing companies including Zambia Sugar (14.3 million liters), Consolidated Farming Ltd (4.7 million liters) and Kalungwishi Estate (0.3 million liters) based on molasses (Pope and Chitembo, 2009). Assuming these companies decided to go into anhydrous bioethanol, this could give a total annual potential of 19.3 million liters at present and a projected total of 32.9 million liters in 2015.

Despite government’s policy initiatives and private sectors interest to respond to the policies, Zambia’s faces several cross-cutting challenges and barriers. These include lack of readily available data on cost of production, impact of biofuels on national economy, lack of low cost investment fund for biofuels, lack of incentives to attract investment in biofuels industry, the slower pace in processing land acquisition applications, inadequate supportive regulations, inadequacy of information on biofuels, lack of understanding of environmental/energy tradeoffs, and absence of an effective inter-ministerial committee

> 2 http://www.palmoilhq.com/PalmOilNews/zampalm-invests-in-palm-oil-plantation-in-zambia/

> 3 http://business.globaltimes.cn/world/2009-06/436578.html

> 4 http://www.times.co.zm/news/viewnews.cgi?category=6&id=1269073856

> 5 http://allafrica.com/stories/201303111698.html

3