MORE than 100 jobs will be created on Teesside when a renewable fuel company expands its operations.

D1 Oils Limited, a company that developed sustainable biodiesel, last night announced it would be producing the fuel to European standards for the emerging industry.

The company, which moves to offices in Preston Farm, Stockton, today, pledged to invest further in technology in its manufacturing plant in Teesside.

D1 hopes to employ 100 people and manufacture mobile oil refineries in Teesside, which will be shipped to its plantations around the world.

The company, which projects a turnover of between £30m and £40m within three years, will raise money to invest in its manufacturing plant by floating on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) this summer.

Instead of the more conventional rape seed oil being used in fuel, D1 has developed technology with universities in South Africa and India to make diesel using oils from trees and other plants.

D1 was set up as a limited company two years ago to tackle the growing global demand for sustainable energy solutions.

It now has offices in Boston, Johannesburg, Manila, and London, and will soon open offices in Delhi.

D1 has signed its first contract to refine and distribute the biodiesel with the Philippine Coconut Authority to help implement the country's Clean Air Act.

It will refine the oil produced from a 35,000-hectare coconut plantation in the Philippines, with the first biodiesel due to be produced in October.

D1 vice-chairman Alex Worrall, who is also chairman of the ThyssenKrupp group in the UK, which owns TKA Tallent, in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, said: "We have put a lot of our own money into this project because we believed in it.

"Not only are we making a sustainable fuel, but we have started looking at areas where the land is sub-standard, on the edge of deserts, where we can grow trees that can stand drought conditions and make oil out of them.

"Then we are bringing employment into those areas and also improving the land by cultivating it."

D1 chairman Karl Watkin said: "We have strong links with Teesside and there is a good engineering base there, so we want to develop those links."