The Verus Group

The Verus Group of companies, owned by Justin Vermaak and based in Durban, South Africa, started to develop a Bio-Energy business model in 2002 to expand their existing operations in Africa. Verus did research on non-edible plant oils as feedstock that would not compete with their existing Food production business and ended up focusing on oilseed bearing trees (OSBT), specifically Jatropha Curcas Lineas.

The research began with an extensive literary study and progressed to several visits too various sites and universities where Jatropha was being studied or produced on a small scale including South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, India, Egypt and Indonesia. During the next few years more information about Jatropha and the Bio-Energy industry were gathered while we planted our own trials of 40 ha of Jatropha trees and 40 ha of Palm trees in the North-Eastern parts of Zambia.

The Verus Bio-Energy business model included growing the OSBT's, processing the fruits/seeds into good quality biodiesel and using the biomass to produce our own electricity. The idea was to use our own products to lower our production costs as well as sell to the industrial users in the region. For the Bio-Energy business to be feasible we needed large, contiguous pieces of land that's not heavily inhabited and meets all the criteria of the project. The plan was to develop several bio-energy farming estates over the next few years. Africa presented itself as the ideal place to start these projects.

To implement the Bio-Energy business model on such a big scale would require substantial investment capital and financial resources. Because the Bio-Energy business model depended on establishing the whole energy supply chain including primary production, processing and value adding, Verus needed to strengthen and expand their existing skills base, infrastructure, systems, networks etc. The best way of doing this was to form strategic partnerships with companies that can add value to the business model in the countries were Verus planned to operate.

The right economic environment to start the bio-energy business soon presented itself when oil prices started to rise dramatically in late 2005.