MALAYSIA SEES OPPORTUNITY IN CARBON CREDITS

Smart nations will take advantage of the emissions credits market. Those who are reluctant to get involved are only depriving themselves of opportunity.

In the case of Malaysia and Indonesia, there is yet another opportunity: To protect some of the last, precious rainforests by alloting more credits for saving the forests than for exploiting them.

Opportunity in selling carbon credits
C.S. Tan, September 3, 2007 (The Star)

WHO
Malaysian auto parts maker SMIS Corp Bhd (executive director Ng Wai Kee), Singaporean project develoer/carbon asset manager KYOTOenergy Ptd Ltd (Michel Buron, CEO)

Malaysia: Lumut is on Perak, the mainland sector, just northwest of Kuala Lumpur; Lahad Datu is on Sarawak, the Borneo sector, at the northeast tip. (click to enlarge)

WHAT
SMIS purchased KYOTOenergy to be among the first in Malaysia to take advantage of emissions credits values there.

WHEN
SMIS purchased KYOTOenergy in June 2007. The KYOTOenergy-Kansai Electric deal, completed the last week of August 2007, runs thru Dec 31, 2012, the end of Kyoto Phase 1.

WHERE
- Kansai Electric is Japanese. The palm oil composting plant is in in Lahad Datu, Sabah.
The other validated Malaysian credit-potential project is in Lumut, Perak.
- KYOTOenergy is also working on projects in Singapore, Vietnam, Guatemala and Honduras.

WHY
- 1st deal: KYOTOenergy middled the sale of emissions credits from Malaysian bio-organic fertiliser MG Biogreen Sdn Bhd to Kansai Electric Power Co Inc. (400,000 credits from palm oil waste composting plant)
- Malaysia now has 18 projects registered under Kyoto Protocol guidelines, up from 2 last year. This indicates growing opportunity for Malaysian businesses to obtain funding by selling credits to EU and other Kyoto-subscribing nations’ heavy emitters.
- Credits can only be sold if the registered projects obtain validation of ongoing performance, which only 2 of the 16 have done, Biogreen and a biomass palm oil waste plant. Each can sell 100,000 credits/year at 10 euros/ton, for a total of 18 million euros/year. (NewEnergyNews: Not bad for incidental income.

The sad truth about New Energy development in Malaysia and Indonesia: Precious rainforests are being cleared to create palm oil plantations. The West can prevent this by making more carbon credits available for protecting the forests than for destroying them.

QUOTES
- Buron: “Emissions of [gases covered by the Kyoto Protocols] are converted into carbon dioxide to calculate the carbon credit. For example, one tonne of methane is calculated as equal to 21 tonnes of carbon dioxide…”
- Buron: “We won't develop a project just for the carbon credit. It has to be a by-product, but the additional revenue improves the viability of a project…”