Civil servants to get one annual increment on July 1, 2013

In summary, civil servants get to enjoy:

Annual increment      : Will be paid early, 1st July 2013
People affected         : All 1.4mil civil servants
Increment quantum  : RM80 to RM320 (equivalent to 1 year annual increment)
Total expenditure     : RM1.5 billion
Officers whose salaries have reached ceiling  : To enjoy similar benefits, through special mechanism
Officers affected by this mechanism               : 182,434

Also, salary scale of police (PDRM) and armed forces (ATM) personnel has been raised to be on par with that of the civil service.

PM Datuk Najib Razak addressing the civil servants at the gathering in Putrajaya.

As reported by The Star:

PUTRAJAYA: All civil servants will receive a salary movement benefit of one annual increment, to be paid out on July 1 this year.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, who made the announcement, said this would mean every civil servant would receive between RM80 and RM320.

"This measure will involve an expenditure of RM1.5bil," he said at the "Transforming the Civil Service, Realising Vision 2020" gathering here.

The prime minister also said that effective Jan 1 this year, three additional annual increments would be provided after the maximum salary on the salary schedules.

This will benefit some 180,000 civil servants. According to Bernama, the initiatives were part of the New Remuneration System, which would now be known as the Transformative Remuneration System (SST).

Najib said that in the event there was no salary adjustment or review to ensure that civil servants remained productive and performed well, the government agreed to give a special salary movement of three per cent to those on the maximum salary, provided they met the conditions of the stipulated annual salary movement and performance.

The prime minister also had good news for the almost 50,000 contract officers whose service would end on Dec 31 this year. He said their service would be extended by another year pending an overall study. -- TheStar Online

Malaysia going the Bio-oil way

During the Palm and Lauric Oils Conference and Exhibition in Kuala Lumpur last week, an exhibitor told that bio-oil, which is derived from biomass, it is a cheaper alternative to depleting fossil fuels. Compared to fuel oil, currently priced at around US$750 (RM2,325) per tonne, bio-oil can be be sold for US$375 (RM1,170) per tonne.


What is bio-oil

Bio-oil is a renewable diesel fuel converted from biomass through process called fast or flash pyrolysis. The fast pyrolysis occurs by heating compact solid fuels in the absence of air (oxygen) at temperatures between 350°C and 550°C for a very short period of time (less than 2 seconds) and then condensing the resulting vapors within 2 seconds.

The flash pyrolysis process to produce bio-oil *

Lipochem's bio-oil pilot plant *

Note: *Images from Lipochem's presentation handout.


Big potential for domestic use and export of bio-oil

Malaysia's ambition to produce and use more second-generation biofuel is fast picking up as process engineers embark on converting biomass to liquid fuel via fast pyrolysis.

“Second-generation biofuel, like bio-oil, is more environmentally friendly than biodiesel or bio-ethanol. This is because bio-oil is derived from biomass and this circumvents the food versus fuel dilemma,” said Lipochem Sdn Bhd managing director Koh Pak Meng.

Second-generation biofuels are a realistic alternative to the costlier fossil fuels. This is because bio-oil can be used to heat up water to produce steam to push turbines that generate electricity. This is a valuable means of replacing depleting fossil fuels like petroleum, coal and natural gas.

One can turn a wide range of biomass, for example agricultural waste like oil palm waste, into stable, concentrated bio-crude. This is then refined into bio-oil to replace fuel oil burnt in boilers.

Unlike the current burning of empty fruit bunches in oil mill boilers, Koh said bio-oil plants adopt the fast pyrolysis process, where biomass is heated rapidly to temperatures between 300° Celsius and 550°C at high pressure without any oxygen.

The gases released by the burnt biomass enter a quench tower, where they are quickly cooled and recycled back to the reactor as fuel.

“Bio-oil plants are the way forward as ithey are far more energy efficient and make the industry more carbon neutral,” he told Business Times at the sidelines of the Palm and Lauric Oils Conference and Exhibition, here, yesterday.

Currently, Lipochem’s demo plant in Klang is able to process fiveonnes of dry biomass a day. Koh said this plant, when scaled up 20 times to a commercial size of 100 tonnes a day, will cost around RM30 million.

“The return on investment for a typical 100-tonne-a-day bio-oil plant is around three years. It is a worthwhile investment.”

Koh said bio-oil has many of the advantages of petroleum fuels since it can be stored, pumped and transported. It is currently being combusted directly in boilers, gas turbines, and slow and medium speed diesels for steam and power plants.

“Fuel oil is priced at around US$750 (RM2,325) per tonne while bio-oil can be sold for US$375 per tonne. The price difference itself poses big potential for domestic use of bio-oil as well as for the export market.”


via: Business Times

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Done laughing?

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Again, start your Monday with laughter.