Plans for the future

Petroldragon’s excellent results in the production of crude oil, together with Omar’s success in refining a market-ready product, brought Andrea Rossi to envision producing a commercial fuel similar to that of motor vehicles, the uncontested prime mover of the Italian economy’s energy sources.

In Rossi’s plants an idea began to take shape: experimenting in, and making the public aware of, the possibility of running cars and other means of transportation with the reprocessed waste of human society, rather than with black gold and its derivatives.

In the premises of the refinery, a small trial racetrack about 1 km long was built, where old Fiat 131 cars circulated powered by a fuel substitute for diesel oil made from food waste.

In 1993 the Petroldragon Racing Team was born, and entered the scene of Formula 3 racing with its own single-seater built by Alfa Romeo.

The Petroldragon car always placed mid-table. No ambitions were held as far as racing was concerned, but this car, running on waste-derived oil and capable of competing with automobiles powered by far more common petroleum products, was tangible proof, establishing Andrea Rossi’s product as a concrete alternative to fossil fuels.

Andrea Rossi, Petroldragon, and Omar were in every aspect pioneers in this field of research, which many years later would lead to the production of today’s biodiesel, now regularly used in diesel fuels.

At the time, the Omar-Petroldragon group was estimated by leading economists to be worth something like 50 billion lire.