FUEL producer D1 Oils has revealed plans to create 100 jobs in the emerging biofuels industry on Teesside.

The company, which was based in Northumberland but moved its headquarters to Teesside last week, will create the jobs following a £20m flotation on the stock exchange next month.

It is floating on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and plans to become a global supplier of low-cost environmentally friendly bio-diesel.

The company plans to open a head office on Teesside that includes research and development facilities.

D1 specialises in growing crops that can be used to produce energy, including the harvesting, extracting and processing crude vegetable oil for refining into biodiesel.

It is hoped that one of its main customers will be the Biofuels Corporation, which is building a £21m refinery at Seal Sands, on Teesside, to produce 250,000 tonnes of biodiesel a year.

Last night, entrepreneur and D1 Oils chairman Karl Watkins said: "We will be setting up a major head office in Teesside once we have floated, with a research and development programme. We currently employ eight people, with one on Teesside, but that will go up to 100 people."

Biodiesel is a renewable fuel that is added to petroleum diesel, reducing harmful carbon emissions.

D1 Oils has developed a system that uses oil from crops, including coconuts, to mix with conventional fuel.

The company has identified jatropha, a non-edible tree that can produce oil-bearing seeds over a 20-year life span, as its preferred crop.

It has plantation rights for 37,000 hectares of land in Africa and Asia to cultivate the jatropha oil and has an option on a further six million hectares.

l D1 last night announced that Dr Clive Morton OBE was to become a non-executive director of D1 Oils.

Dr Morton set up The Komatsu plant, at Birtley, near Chester-le-Street, and was a board member of Northern Electric and Rolls Royce Power and the first chairman of Gateshead Hospitals NHS Trust. He was awarded the OBE for services to manufacturing and the community.

Dr Morton left the region in 1996 to join Anglian Water and has subsequently set up The Morton Partnership, which specialises in organisational transformation.

He said: "I am pleased to be renewing my links to the North-East by joining the D1 Oils team at a very exciting time for the business. I look forward to assisting the growth of D1 Oils, as well as renewing acquaintances with all of my many friends in the region.