China's largest egg producer, the Beijing DQY Agriculture Technology Co. (DQY), announced on Feb 17 that it has signed a cooperation agreement with a major United States meat supplier, Smithfield Foods, on Feb 17 to establish a bio-fuel company in the US at a cost of $1.8 billion.

The joint venture will be run by two of the two company's subsidiaries - Beijing Helee Bio-Energy and Murphy-Brown - and will use Helee's technology to start a biogas project on a pig farm, this year.

According to the agreement, the joint company will produce 3.5 million cubic meters of methane annually and have a power generating capacity of one megawatt.

The project is also expected to produce 7 million kWh of electricity per year and help cut 42,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

The two subsidiary companies plan to use the waste produced by Smithfield's 2600 pig farms over the next decade to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 21 million tons annually, equal to four times the annual emissions of the city of Chicago.

Smithfield Foods has a 22.5-per-cent share of the US's meat market, while DQY accounts for 45 percent of China's egg output. Its biogas power project in Beijing generates 14 million kWh of electricity per year and can cut carbon dioxide emissions by 84,000 tons annually.

Edited by Chen Zhilin and Rakhee M