FUELS company D1 Oils announced last night that it had received its first shipment of vegetable oil at its Teesside base to be refined into environmentally-friendly biodiesel.

The soya oil, from Brazil, will be refined at D1's Middlesbrough base, which has a production capacity of 32,000 tonnes each year.

By the end of the year, D1 hopes to increase capacity to 72,000 tonnes a year, which will require shipments of 6,000 tonnes of oil a month.

The company has designed its own D1 20 refineries, of which four are in Middlesbrough, that can each produce 8,000 tonnes of biodiesel a year from a range of feedstocks including rape seed, soya, palm and jatropha.

Chief executive of D1 Oils Elliott Mannis said: "We believe that refining imported vegetable oil feedstocks in the UK is a cost-effective means to meet growing national demand for biodiesel as a cleaner and greener fuel for cars and trucks.

"As our plantations of primary feedstock, jatropha curcas, begin to produce oil in volume over the next few years, we will increase significantly the import and refining of low cost feedstocks sustainably produced overseas, particularly in developing countries."