CAPE TOWN, Feb 4 (Reuters) – South African petrochemicals company Sasol, mining group Anglo American and its diamond business De Beers entered into a joint development agreement on Tuesday to pilot the production of renewable diesel from vegetable oil.

Under the terms of the deal signed at the annual African Mining Indaba in Cape Town, the partners will assess the technical and commercial viability of feedstock production, company officials told reporters.

De Beers is providing the more than 20-hectare tracts of land on which the crops for the trial vegetable oil feedstock – initially the Solaris and Moringa plants – will be grown, Anglo American’s Director of Projects and Development Alison Atkinson said.

Atkinson said pre-feasibility studies have been approved and renewable diesel production trials have been initiated. The resulting fuel will be used at De Beers operations.

Biofuels, derived from plant material or animal waste, are among the alternative fuels promoted to reduce carbon emissions.

Although renewable diesel production in South Africa is not yet at a commercial scale, customer demand and decarbonisation targets indicate that the country’s renewable fuels market is promising, according to Sasol.

“Renewable diesel is transformative. It meets the technical standards of conventional diesel while significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Sarushen Pillay, executive vice president of Sasol’s Business Building, Strategy and Technology portfolio, said at the signing ceremony.

(Reporting by Nqobile Dludla; Editing by Jan Harvey)