Thailand’s energy ministry is checking payments to a Rayong biofuel plant after it reported producing 18.6 million litres of tallow-based diesel in October, a national monthly record. The claim helped unlock public credits and contracts worth up to 1.14 billion baht (about €29 million), but the plant’s declared supply of rendered fat cannot be reconciled with available delivery and import figures.
The shortfall is at least 8,100 tonnes, according to a review of provincial weighbridge totals and customs data by the Plausible Post. The plant, Mekha Circular Fuels, says it processed 20,400 tonnes to make the fuel. Its October output was 14% above the previous monthly record, announced on 31 October by the state’s Fuel Allocation Bureau.
The numbers behind the record
Rendered fat is a byproduct of meat processing. Thailand’s emergency programme pays suppliers to collect it and backs plants that turn it into fuel, a measure promoted as a way to widen supplies when imported fuel is costly. Three provincial collection networks recorded 8,100 tonnes delivered to Mekha in October; customs figures show no matching surge in imported tallow.
Berke Ertepınar, a logistics analyst who compared the public totals, said the gap could not be explained by the plant’s stated opening stock. “A record was declared, but the tank farms cannot show the fat that made it,” he said. He estimates the unaccounted feedstock could represent about 7.3 million litres of fuel at the plant’s stated conversion rate.
A record was declared, but the tank farms cannot show the fat that made it.
Berke Ertepınar, logistics analyst
The mismatch does not by itself prove that fuel was never produced or that money was improperly claimed. But Sheetal Meda-Kota, a deputy director in the energy ministry’s fuel programme, said on Friday that payments tied to October tonnage had been paused while officials check supplier weights, storage records and production figures. The disputed credits total at least 286 million baht (about €7.3 million), she said.
Suppliers face fresh checks
Mekha Circular Fuels said its reported total includes fat held in storage and deliveries from private collectors whose scales were not included in the provincial network figures. The company said it would provide its batch measurements and supplier records to officials, and maintained that the October production figure had been measured at the refinery. It did not explain the full 8,100-tonne difference.
The announcement of record output had been welcomed by fuel distributors, who expected the new supply to ease pressure on diesel imports. Petre Calin, an energy-market researcher in Bangkok, said a prolonged pause could instead force the government to rely more heavily on conventional imports. “The scandal is not just the size of the claim; it is that the record was treated as proof of supply,” he said.
Thailand’s parliamentary finance committee has scheduled a public hearing for 11 November. Meda-Kota said officials would publish the verified production total and any revised subsidy figure after the checks, expected to take two weeks. Until then, the government has barred new claims from Mekha’s October batch, leaving distributors to wait for fuel that the record books say has already been made.
