Fuel prices may have stabilised somewhat in recent months, but who would have thought a few years ago that a litre of diesel would be close to £1.30? The Belfast Telegraph reports how customs officials in Northern Ireland are foiling an illicit fuel plant every 10 days, with the number having trebled in the past decade.
However, despite reports that the underground fuel industry is funding terrorism and costing the economy tens of millions of pounds each year, to date, not one person has been jailed over fuel fraud since 2002, even though some 203 fuel laundering plants have been raided in the past decade.
Within the farming community there has been a lot of talk relating to red diesel; which vehicles are permitted to use the fuel, what usage they are permitted to carry out when running on red diesel and so forth. But even red diesel is not cheap, even is it’s only taxed at 11.4p per litre, whilst standard white diesel at 57.95p per litre.
However, farmers across the country are switching on to the fact that they can quite easily make their own biodiesel with the help of cone bottom tanks. Using waste vegetable oils from farming and catering sources, three relatively simple stages include; pre-treatment, reactions and then product purification the latter of which relies on impurities and sediments falling to the bottom of the cone bottom tanks angles cone where it can be drained away.
According to the government, if you produce 2,500 litres or more biofuels per year, or use 2,500 litres or more as motor fuel on which duty has not been paid, then you are obliged to contact HM Revenue and Customs so that they can make arrangements for you to account for the duty. If you have made biodiesel for non-road use, such as on farmland, then the duty is only 11.14 pence, compared to 57.95 pence per litre (information taken from www.gov.uk/fuel-duty).
To learn about cone bottom tanks (conical tanks) for biodiesel production and the range of Enduramaxx vertical storage tanks, horizontal tanks, potable tanks and rainwater tanks, get in touch now!
