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    U.S. oil prices and Brent crude rocketed to all-time highs again on a record-low dollar, tensions in the Middle East and worries over energy supply shortages ahead of the northern hemisphere's winter. Now even wealthy countries like South Korea are warning that the record prices will damage economic growth. In the developing world, the situation is outright catastrophic. Korea Times - October 26, 2007.

    Ethablog's Henrique Oliveira, a young Brazilian biofuels business expert, is back online. From April to September 2007, he traveled around Brazil comparing the Brazilian and American biofuels markets. In August he was joined by Tom MacDonald, senior alcohol fuels specialist with the California Energy Commission. Henrique reports about his trip with a series of photo essays. EthaBlog - October 24, 2007.

    Italy's Enel is to invest around €400 mln in carbon capture and storage and is looking now for a suitable site to store CO2 underground. Enel's vision of coal's future is one in which coal is used to produce power, to produce ash and gypsum as a by-product for cement, hydrogen as a by-product of coal gasification and CO2 which is stored underground. Carbon capture and storage techniques can be applied to biomass and biofuels, resulting in carbon-negative energy. Reuters - October 22, 2007.

    Gate Petroleum Co. is planning to build a 55 million-gallon liquid biofuels terminal in Jacksonville, Florida. The terminal is expected to cost $90 million and will be the first in the state designed primarily for biofuels. It will receive and ship ethanol and biodiesel via rail, ship and truck and provide storage for Gate and for third parties. The biofuels terminal is set to open in 2010. Florida Times-Union - October 19, 2007.

    China Holdings Inc., through its controlled subsidiary China Power Inc., signed a development contract with the HeBei Province local government for the rights to develop and construct 50 MW of biomass renewable energy projects utilizing straw. The projects have a total expected annual power generating capacity of 400 million kWh and expected annual revenues of approximately US$33.3 million. Total investment in the projects is approximately US$77.2 million, 35 percent in cash and 65 percent from China-based bank loans with preferred interest rates with government policy protection for the biomass renewable energy projects. Full production is expected in about two years. China Holdings - October 18, 2007.

    Canadian Bionenergy Corporation, supplier of biodiesel in Canada, has announced an agreement with Renewable Energy Group, Inc. to partner in the construction of a biodiesel production facility near Edmonton, Alberta. The company broke ground yesterday on the construction of the facility with an expected capacity of 225 million litres (60 million gallons) per year of biodiesel. Together, the companies also intend to forge a strategic marketing alliance to better serve the North American marketplace by supplying biodiesel blends and industrial methyl esters. Canadian Bioenergy - October 17, 2007.

    Leading experts in organic solar cells say the field is being damaged by questionable reports about ever bigger efficiency claims, leading the community into an endless and dangerous tendency to outbid the last report. In reality these solar cells still show low efficiencies that will need to improve significantly before they become a success. To counter the hype, scientists call on the community to press for independent verification of claimed efficiencies. Biopact sees a similar trend in the field of biofuels from algae, in which press releases containing unrealistic yield projections and 'breakthroughs' are released almost monthly. Eurekalert - October 16, 2007.

    The Colorado Wood Utilization and Marketing Program at Colorado State University received a $65,000 grant from the U.S. Forest Service to expand the use of woody biomass throughout Colorado. The purpose of the U.S. Department of Agriculture grant program is to provide financial assistance to state foresters to accelerate the adoption of woody biomass as an alternative energy source. Colorado State University - October 12, 2007.

    Indian company Naturol Bioenergy Limited announced that it will soon start production from its biodiesel facility at Kakinada, in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The facility has an annual production capacity of 100,000 tons of biodiesel and 10,000 tons of pharmaceutical grade glycerin. The primary feedstock is crude palm oil, but the facility was designed to accomodate a variety of vegetable oil feedstocks. Biofuel Review - October 11, 2007.

    Brazil's state energy company Petrobras says it will ship 9 million liters of ethanol to European clients next month in its first shipment via the northeastern port of Suape. Petrobras buys the biofuel from a pool of sugar cane processing plants in the state of Pernambuco, where the port is also located. Reuters - October 11, 2007.

    Dynamotive Energy Systems Corporation, a leader in biomass-to-biofuel technology, announces that it has completed a $10.5 million equity financing with Quercus Trust, an environmentally oriented fund, and several other private investors. Ardour Capital Inc. of New York served as financial advisor in the transaction. Business Wire - October 10, 2007.

    Cuban livestock farmers are buying distillers dried grains (DDG), the main byproduct of corn based ethanol, from biofuel producers in the U.S. During a trade mission of Iowan officials to Cuba, trade officials there said the communist state will double its purchases of the dried grains this year. DesMoines Register - October 9, 2007.

    Brasil Ecodiesel, the leading Brazilian biodiesel producer company, recorded an increase of 57.7% in sales in the third quarter of the current year, in comparison with the previous three months. Sales volume stood at 53,000 cubic metres from August until September, against 34,000 cubic metres of the biofuel between April and June. The company is also concluding negotiations to export between 1,000 to 2,000 tonnes of glycerine per month to the Asian market. ANBA - October 4, 2007.

    PolyOne Corporation, the US supplier of specialised polymer materials, has opened a new colour concentrates manufacturing plant in Kutno, Poland. Located in central Poland, the new plant will produce colour products in the first instance, although the company says the facility can be expanded to handle other products. In March, the Ohio-based firm launched a range of of liquid colourants for use in bioplastics in biodegradable applications. The concentrates are European food contact compliant and can be used in polylactic acid (PLA) or starch-based blends. Plastics & Rubber Weekly - October 2, 2007.

    A turbo-charged, spray-guided direct-injection engine running on pure ethanol (E100) can achieve very high specific output, and shows “significant potential for aggressive engine downsizing for a dedicated or dual-fuel solution”, according to engineers at Orbital Corporation. GreenCarCongress - October 2, 2007.

    UK-based NiTech Solutions receives £800,000 in private funding to commercialize a cost-saving industrial mixing system, dubbed the Continuous Oscillatory Baffled Reactor (COBR), which can lower costs by 50 per cent and reduce process time by as much as 90 per cent during the manufacture of a range of commodities including chemicals, drugs and biofuels. Scotsman - October 2, 2007.

    A group of Spanish investors is building a new bioethanol plant in the western region of Extremadura that should be producing fuel from maize in 2009. Alcoholes Biocarburantes de Extremadura (Albiex) has already started work on the site near Badajoz and expects to spend €42/$59 million on the plant in the next two years. It will produce 110 million litres a year of bioethanol and 87 million kg of grain byproduct that can be used for animal feed. Europapress - September 28, 2007.

    Portuguese fuel company Prio SA and UK based FCL Biofuels have joined forces to launch the Portuguese consumer biodiesel brand, PrioBio, in the UK. PrioBio is scheduled to be available in the UK from 1st November. By the end of this year (2007), says FCL Biofuel, the partnership’s two biodiesel refineries will have a total capacity of 200,000 tonnes which will is set to grow to 400,000 tonnes by the end of 2010. Biofuel Review - September 27, 2007.

    According to Tarja Halonen, the Finnish president, one third of the value of all of Finland's exports consists of environmentally friendly technologies. Finland has invested in climate and energy technologies, particularly in combined heat and power production from biomass, bioenergy and wind power, the president said at the UN secretary-general's high-level event on climate change. Newroom Finland - September 25, 2007.

    Spanish engineering and energy company Abengoa says it had suspended bioethanol production at the biggest of its three Spanish plants because it was unprofitable. It cited high grain prices and uncertainty about the national market for ethanol. Earlier this year, the plant, located in Salamanca, ceased production for similar reasons. To Biopact this is yet another indication that biofuel production in the EU/US does not make sense and must be relocated to the Global South, where the biofuel can be produced competitively and sustainably, without relying on food crops. Reuters - September 24, 2007.

    The Midlands Consortium, comprised of the universities of Birmingham, Loughborough and Nottingham, is chosen to host Britain's new Energy Technologies Institute, a £1 billion national organisation which will aim to develop cleaner energies. University of Nottingham - September 21, 2007.

    The EGGER group, one of the leading European manufacturers of chipboard, MDF and OSB boards has begun work on installing a 50MW biomass boiler for its production site in Rion. The new furnace will recycle 60,000 tonnes of offcuts to be used in the new combined heat and power (CHP) station as an ecological fuel. The facility will reduce consumption of natural gas by 75%. IHB Network - September 21, 2007.


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Monday, October 29, 2007

Philippine and Chinese company team up to build $ 30 million cassava ethanol plant in Sarangani

A US$ 30 million ethanol plant will be put up next year by independent oil player Eastern Petroleum and a Chinese partner in Sarangani province (→Flash Earth) in south-central Mindanao. Fernando Martinez, president of Eastern Petroleum, said the multi-million dollar ethanol plant would be a joint venture between his company and China's Guangxi Estates.

The ethanol plant with construction expected to take place in the last quarter of 2008 and to be completed in 2009 will have a capacity of 150,000-200,000 metric tonnes per year (520,000 to 690,000 liters per day / 137,400 to 182,300 gallons US per day). The primary feedstock will be cassava.

At present, Martinez said the partners have already developed a 2,000 hectare cassava plantation in Sarangani province and they were encouraging other countries in the East Asian Growth Area (EAGA) to do the same.
We have to encourage other countries in EAGA particularly Indonesia and Cambodia [because these] are places where we can grow and expand, because if the locals are not fast in acting then we might as well go there. - Fernando Martinez, president of Eastern Petroleum
Cassava is a low-input tuber crop that thrives in poor soils. In Asia it is mainly used for the production of industrial starch even though it also remains a major staple food. When converted into ethanol, a fuel with a relatively strong energy balance can be obtained (previous post).

Experts from leading agricultural organisations, like the Cassava Office for Asia of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), think the crop offers a major opportunity for poor farmers to prosper as a 'Green Cassava Revolution' is currently sweeping most Southeast Asian countries. With a combined effort from the science and policy community, cassava can bring a rural renaissance and benefit the poorest (previous post).

The Philippines, which has a large cassava potential, has been listed by Ernst & Young as one of the most attractive developing countries for investments in first generation biofuels (see Q1 report and Q2 report). Its geographical location at the center of the rapidly growing South East and East Asian region, its biofuels legislation and incentives, and its relative abundance of natural resources are key factors determining this attractiveness.

The Philippines' biofuels sector got a fresh impetus earlier this year after President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo passed the much-awaited Biofuels Act. The new act mandates minimum 1% biodiesel blending into all diesel from May this year and minimum 2% biodiesel blending from mid-2009. It calls for minimum 5% ethanol blending in gasoline from mid-2009, rising to 10% from around mid-2011. The Act also set up mechanisms to encourage investments in the local biofuels industry:
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Currently, the mandate for ethanol translates into the need for 60 million liters today and 300 million liters of ethanol from 2009 onwards. "So we will just need filling around 20-percent or less of the market. We have to put it there, everything including the ethanol plant. It does not make sense that we just import the feedstock," Martinez said. He added they expected the US$ 30 million ethanol plant to be commercially operational in the first quarter of 2010.

The biofuels act provides incentives for the production, distribution and use of locally-produced biofuels, such as specific tax and value added tax exemptions and financial assistance from government financial institutions.

Because of this, the Philippines have attracted major investments. Earlier, PNOC-Alternative Fuels Corp, the alternative fuels subsidiary of state-owned Philippine National Oil Co., signed a memorandum of understanding with UK-based Natural Resources Group Chemical Engineering under which the latter will pump $1.3 billion into the Philippines' biofuels sector.

The companies are looking at building a 3.5 million mt/year biodiesel and a 350,000 mt/year ethanol plant in the country and will also invest in jatropha plantations (earlier post). PNOC-AFC also signed an agreement with South Korea's Samsung in September 2006 to set up an integrated jatropha plantation and biofuels project.

US firm E-Cane Fuel Corp. announced it will invest €111/US$150 million to put up a fully integrated ethanol processing facility in Central Luzon, with sugarcane as the main feedstock (previous post).

Japan's Marubeni has also announced plans to set up five ethanol plants in the Philippines and local firm San Carlos Bioenergy is already building a 120,000 liters/day ethanol plant in the country.

The Philippine Department of Agriculture also sealed an agreement with India-based bioenergy company Praj Industries to help develop the country's nascent biofuels industry. Under a Memorandum of Understanding both parties will team up for feedstock development and setting up biofuel production plants (more here).

According to the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) Japanese firm Toyo Engineering Corp. recently announced it is about to complete a feasibility study on an integrated coco methyl-ester (CME) manufacturing plant that it plans to put up in the Philippines' northern region of Ilocos. It is further looking at 600,000 hectares of coconut plantation (earlier post).

Existing coco-biodiesel production capacity in the country is 140 million liters/year from two major companies alone - Chemrez and Senbel Fine Chemicals. At least 10 other smaller producers are said to have registered with the DOE for accreditation.

Finally, Brazil has agreed to intensify cooperation in energy security, particularly in the development and use of biofuels, with the Philippines. The countries agreed to boost cooperation in the development and use of ethanol, biodiesel and biomass energy (more here).


References:
Balita: US$ 30-M ethanol plant will rise next year in Saranggani - October 28, 2007.

Biopact: CIAT: cassava ethanol could benefit small farmers in South East Asia - September 24, 2007

Biopact: First comprehensive energy balance study reveals cassava is a highly efficient biofuel feedstock - April 18, 2007

Biopact: Biofuels and renewables 'Country Attractiveness Indices' for Q1 2007 - May 24, 2007

Biopact: US tops Biofuels Country Attractiveness Indices for Q2 2007 - September 18, 2007

Biopact: Philippines in cooperation agreement with India's Praj Industries to develop biofuel sector - October 05, 2007

Biopact: Toyo Engineering eyes 600,000 hectares for coconut production in the Philippines - September 05, 2007

Biopact: Brazil and the Philippines to intensify cooperation on biofuels - August 31, 2007

Biopact: E-cane Fuel to invest US$150 million in ethanol plant in the Philippines - May 28, 2007

Biopact: Philippines in US$1.3 billion biofuel project with UK's NRG - May 23, 2007

posted by Biopact team at 4:18 PM  

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