LAS VEGAS — Southern Nevada motorists can start filling their vehicles with biodiesel fuel thanks to a Utah-based company.

Sinclair Oil Corp. announced Wednesday that it's the first to offer biodiesel fuel to retail customers in the Las Vegas area. The Salt Lake City-based company started selling a 5 percent biodiesel fuel blend, made in part from soybeans, in 16 of its 30 gas stations here.

The fuel can be used interchangeably with regular diesel fuel and will sell for about $2.93 a gallon, about what regular diesel costs in the area.

Advocates for biodiesel say it is better for the environment, better for engines and lessens the country's dependence on foreign oil.

"I think biodiesel will evolve and grow," said Bud Blackmore, Sinclair's senior vice president of marketing. "It's certainly being pushed by all governments to expand alternative fuels."

Biofuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, could provide up to 37 percent of the United States' transport fuel within the next 25 years, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Worldwatch Institute.

Gary Weinberg, sales manager for Haycock Petroleum, Sinclair Oil's supplier in southern Nevada, called Las Vegas a test market for selling the fuel to retail customers. Haycock has supplied Clark County school buses and the McCarran International Airport motor pool with a 20 percent blend for the past five years.

Sinclair estimates it will replace 250,000 gallons of diesel fuel annually in Las Vegas with biodiesel by selling the blend. The company, with it's familiar green dinosaur logo, supplies fuel to some 2,600 stations in 21 states in the West and Midwest, according to its Web site. It offers a 2 percent biodiesel mix in Minnesota and North Dakota.

Haycock Petroleum takes pure biodiesel fuel made from soybean oil, which is supplied by Biodiesel of Las Vegas, and mixes it with petroleum-based diesel to create a 5 percent blend. The regional petroleum company serves Nevada, California and Utah.

Weinberg said he thinks farmers could be prepared to supply the nation with a 20 percent biodiesel blend in the next five years.

Attempts Thursday to determine the company's plans for biodiesel availability in Utah were unsuccessful.

"Farmers have been paid for years not to grow certain crops," he said. "Now instead of being paid not to grow something, they'll be paid to grow soybeans."

The Worldwatch Institute warns, however, that large-scale use of biofuels could bring different kinds of agriculture and ecological risks.

"It is essential that government incentives be used to minimize competition between food and fuel crops and to discourage expansion onto ecologically valuable lands," Suzanne Hunt, Worldwatch Biofuels Project manager, said in a statement.