<body> --------------
Contact Us       Consulting       Projects       Our Goals       About Us
home » Archive »
Nature Blog Network


    Austrian bioenergy group Cycleenergy acquired controlling interest in Greenpower Projektentwicklungs GmbH, expanding its biomass operational portfolio by 16 MW to a total of 22 MW. In the transaction Cycleenergy took over 51% of the company and thereby formed a joint venture with Porr Infrastruktur GmbH, a subsidiary of Austrian construction company Porr AG. Greenpower operates two wood chip CHP facilities in Upper and Lower Austria, each with an electric capacity of 2 MW. The plants have been in operation since the middle of last year and consume more than 30,000 tonnes of wood chips and are expected to generate over €5 million in additional revenue. Cycleenergy - February 6, 2007.

    The 2008 edition of Bioenergy World Europe will take place in Verona, Italy, from 7 to 10 February. Gathering a broad range of international exhibitors covering gaseous, liquid and solid bioenergy, the event aims to offer participants the possibility of developing their business through meetings with professionals, thematic study tours and an international forum focusing on market and regulatory issues, as well as industry expertise. Bioenergy World Europe - February 5, 2007.

    The World GTL Summit will take place between 12 – 14th May 2008 in London. Key topics to be discussed include: the true value of Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) projects, well-to-wheels analyses of the GTL value chain; construction, logistics and procurement challenges; the future for small-scale Fischer-Tropsch (FT) projects; Technology, economics, politics and logistics of Coal-to-Liquids (CTL); latest Biomass-to-Liquids (BTL) commercialisation initiatives. CWC Exhibitions - February 4, 2007.

    The 4th Annual Brussels Climate Change Conference is announced for 26 - 27 February 2008. This joint CEPS/Epsilon conference will explore the key issues for a post-Kyoto agreement on climate change. The conference focuses on EU and global issues relating to global warming, and in particular looks at the following issues: - Post-2012 after Bali and before the Hokkaido G8 summit; Progress of EU integrated energy and climate package, burden-sharing renewables and technology; EU Emissions Trading Review with a focus on investment; Transport Climatepolicy.eu - January 28, 2007.

    Japan's Marubeni Corp. plans to begin importing a bioethanol compound from Brazil for use in biogasoline sold by petroleum wholesalers in Japan. The trading firm will import ETBE, which is synthesized from petroleum products and ethanol derived from sugar cane. The compound will be purchased from Brazilian petrochemical company Companhia Petroquimica do Sul and in February, Marubeni will supply 6,500 kilolitres of the ETBE, worth around US$7 million, to a biogasoline group made up of petroleum wholesalers. Wholesalers have been introducing biofuels since last April by mixing 7 per cent ETBE into gasoline. Plans call for 840 million liters of ETBE to be procured annually from domestic and foreign suppliers by 2010. Trading Markets - January 24, 2007.

    Toyota Tsusho Corp., Ohta Oil Mill Co. and Toyota Chemical Engineering Co., say it and two other firms have jointly developed a technology to produce biodiesel fuel at lower cost. Biodiesel is made by blending methanol into plant-derived oil. The new technology requires smaller amounts of methanol and alkali catalysts than conventional technologies. In addition, the new technology makes water removal facilities unnecessary. JCN Network - January 22, 2007.

    Finland's Metso Paper and SWISS COMBI - W. Kunz dryTec A.G. have entered a licence agreement for the SWISS COMBI belt dryer KUVO, which allows biomass to be dried in a low temperature environment and at high capacity, both for pulp & paper and bioenergy applications. Kauppalehti - January 22, 2007.

    Record warm summers cause extreme ice melt in Greenland: an international team of scientists, led by Dr Edward Hanna at the University of Sheffield, has found that recent warm summers have caused the most extreme Greenland ice melting in 50 years. The new research provides further evidence of a key impact of global warming and helps scientists place recent satellite observations of Greenland´s shrinking ice mass in a longer-term climatic context. Findings are published in the 15 January 2008 issue of Journal of Climate. University of Sheffield - January 15, 2007.

    Japan's Tsukishima Kikai Co. and Marubeni Corp. have together clinched an order from Oenon Holdings Inc. for a plant that will make bioethanol from rice. The Oenon group will invest around 4.4 billion yen (US$40.17 million) in the project, half of which will be covered by a subsidy from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The plant will initially produce bioethanol from imported rice, with plans to use Hokkaido-grown rice in the future. It will produce 5 million liters per year starting in 2009, increasing output to 15m liters in 2011. The facility will be able to produce as much as 50,000 liters of bioethanol from 125 tons of rice each day. Trading Markets - January 11, 2007.

    PetroSun, Inc. announced today that its subsidiary, PetroSun BioFuels Refining, has entered into a JV to construct and operate a biodiesel refinery near Coolidge, Arizona. The feedstock for the refinery will be algal oil produced by PetroSun BioFuels at algae farms to be located in Arizona. The refinery will have a capacity of thirty million gallons and will produce 100% renewable biodiesel. PetroSun BioFuels will process the residual algae biomass into ethanol. MarketWire - January 10, 2007.

    BlueFire Ethanol Fuels Inc, which develops and operates carbohydrate-based transportation fuel production facilities, has secured capital liquidity for corporate overhead and continued project development in the value of US$15 million with Quercus, an environmentally focused trust. BlueFire Ethanol Fuels - January 09, 2007.

    Some $170 billion in new technology development projects, infrastructure equipment and construction, and biofuel refineries will result from the ethanol production standards contained the new U.S. Energy Bill, says BIO, the global Biotechnology Industry Organization. According to Brent Erickson, BIO's executive vice president "Such a new energy infrastructure has not occurred in more than 100 years. We are at the point where we were in the 1850s when kerosene was first distilled and began to replace whale oil. This technology will be coming so fast that what we say today won't be true in two years." Chemical & Engineering News - January 07, 2007.

    Scottish and Southern Energy plc, the UK's second largest power company, has completed the acquisition of Slough Heat and Power Ltd from SEGRO plc for a total cash consideration of £49.25m. The 101MW CHP plant is the UK’s largest dedicated biomass energy facility fueled by wood chips, biomass and waste paper. Part of the plant is contracted under the Non Fossil Fuel Obligation and part of it produces over 200GWH of output qualifying for Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs), which is equivalent to around 90MW of wind generation. Scottish & Southern Energy - January 2, 2007.

    PetroChina Co Ltd, the country's largest oil and gas producer, plans to invest 800 million yuan to build an ethanol plant in Nanchong, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, its parent China National Petroleum Corp said. The ethanol plant has a designed annual capacity of 100,000 tons. ABCMoneyNews - December 21, 2007.

    Mexico passed legislation to promote biofuels last week, offering unspecified support to farmers that grow crops for the production of any renewable fuel. Agriculture Minister Alberto Cardenas said Mexico could expand biodiesel faster than ethanol. More soon. Reuters - December 20, 2007.

    Oxford Catalysts has placed an order worth approximately €700,000 (US$1 million) with the German company Amtec for the purchase of two Spider16 high throughput screening reactors. The first will be used to speed up the development of catalysts for hydrodesulphurisation (HDS). The second will be used to further the development of catalysts for use in gas to liquid (GTL) and Fischer-Tropsch processes which can be applied to next generation biofuels. AlphaGalileo - December 18, 2007.

    According to the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), Brazil's production of sugarcane will increase from 514,1 million tonnes this season, to a record 561,8 million tonnes in the 2008/09 cyclus - an increase of 9.3%. New numbers are also out for the 2007 harvest in Brazil's main sugarcane growing region, the Central-South: a record 425 million tonnes compared to 372,7 million tonnes in 2006, or a 14% increase. The estimate was provided by Unica – the União da Indústria de Cana-de-Açúcar. Jornal Cana - December 16, 2007.

    The University of East Anglia and the UK Met Office's Hadley Centre have today released preliminary global temperature figures for 2007, which show the top 11 warmest years all occurring in the last 13 years. The provisional global figure for 2007 using data from January to November, currently places the year as the seventh warmest on records dating back to 1850. The announcement comes as the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Michel Jarraud, speaks at the Conference of the Parties (COP) in Bali. Eurekalert - December 13, 2007.

    The Royal Society of Chemistry has announced it will launch a new journal in summer 2008, Energy & Environmental Science, which will distinctly address both energy and environmental issues. In recognition of the importance of research in this subject, and the need for knowledge transfer between scientists throughout the world, from launch the RSC will make issues of Energy & Environmental Science available free of charge to readers via its website, for the first 18 months of publication. This journal will highlight the important role that the chemical sciences have in solving the energy problems we are facing today. It will link all aspects of energy and the environment by publishing research relating to energy conversion and storage, alternative fuel technologies, and environmental science. AlphaGalileo - December 10, 2007.

    Dutch researcher Bas Bougie has developed a laser system to investigate soot development in diesel engines. Small soot particles are not retained by a soot filter but are, however, more harmful than larger soot particles. Therefore, soot development needs to be tackled at the source. Laser Induced Incandescence is a technique that reveals exactly where soot is generated and can be used by project partners to develop cleaner diesel engines. Terry Meyer, an Iowa State University assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is using similar laser technology to develop advanced sensors capable of screening the combustion behavior and soot characteristics specifically of biofuels. Eurekalert - December 7, 2007.

    Lithuania's first dedicated biofuel terminal has started operating in Klaipeda port. At the end of November 2007, the stevedoring company Vakaru krova (VK) started activities to manage transshipments. The infrastructure of the biodiesel complex allows for storage of up to 4000 cubic meters of products. During the first year, the terminal plans to transship about 70.000 tonnes of methyl ether, after that the capacities of the terminal would be increased. Investments to the project totaled €2.3 million. Agrimarket - December 5, 2007.

    New Holland supports the use of B100 biodiesel in all equipment with New Holland-manufactured diesel engines, including electronic injection engines with common rail technology. Overall, nearly 80 percent of the tractor and equipment manufacturer's New Holland-branded products with diesel engines are now available to operate on B100 biodiesel. Tractor and equipment maker John Deere meanwhile clarified its position for customers that want to use biodiesel blends up to B20. Grainnet - December 5, 2007.

    According to Wetlands International, an NGO, the Kyoto Protocol as it currently stands does not take into account possible emissions from palm oil grown on a particular type of land found in Indonesia and Malaysia, namely peatlands. Mongabay - December 5, 2007.

    Malaysia's oil & gas giant Petronas considers entering the biofuels sector. Zamri Jusoh, senior manager of Petronas' petroleum development management unit told reporters "of course our focus is on oil and gas, but I think as we move into the future we cannot ignore the importance of biofuels." AFP - December 5, 2007.


Creative Commons License


Thursday, November 29, 2007

Africa-centered biofuel and oil company Energem lists on the AIM

Canada's Energem Resources Inc announced that it has been listed on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and is trading under the symbol ENM. Energem is an energy and biofuels company primarily engaged in the African energy sector, with several concrete biofuel projects being implemented. Energem produces ethanol from molasses in Kenya, while the energy crop of choice for a large biodiesel project in Mozambique is jatropha curcas, the hardy shrub that yields inedible oil. Energem disposed of certain non-core mining and up-stream oil and gas assets, to focus increasingly on renewable fuels.

The company now identifies the following as its core markets:
  • Mid-Stream Oil - refined oil product distribution and sales, storage and infrastructure development: operations in Nigeria and Malawi and a methanol blended fuel manufacturing and sales project in Beijing, China.
  • Biofuels - production, sale and distribution of crude and refined biofuels, including: ethanol production in Kenya and a jatropha-based biodiesel development project in Mozambique (previous post)
  • Trading and Logistics - procurement, supply and logistics management to industry in sub-Saharan Africa.
Energem believes that demand and growth potential in its target markets is strong and that the group is well placed in terms of its African expertise and experience to become a significant player in these markets.

Oil prices are expected to remain high whilst, at the same time, the pressure to reduce dependency on carbon-based and non-renewable sources of energy is likely to increase. This pressure is expected to develop the biofuels market in which the group is now focussed, with African countries acting as both consumers (Kenya) and exporters (Mozambique).

Mozambique

Energem has initiated its first jatropha curcas farming project in the Bilene District of the Gaza province in Mozambique. The project operations are conducted through the ventures wholly owned Mozambican subsidiary, Energem Renewable Energy.

The initial land allocated to the project (1000 ha) will be scaled up dramatically over the life of the project and it is anticipated that by the time this project reaches maturity the land size of the farming operations will be anything from 60,000 hectares to 200,000 hectares:
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

The project enjoys the full support at all government and provincial levels and employs anything from 200 – 300 people, with this figure is set to increase.

It is intended that the commercial crop of jatropha seed harvested from the farming operations will be processed to produce a crude biodiesel which will be exported to the projects target market, in the European Union. Initial testing of research crops and oils produced therefrom fall within the EU specification for biodiesel.

Jatropha curcas has been specifically chosen as the projects principal feedstock crop. Jatropha is a hardy, inedible plant, whose seed produces a relatively high yield of oil when pressed. The cost of producing crude biodiesel from Jatropha is low when compared to current palm oil and rapeseed feedstock. The land on which the project is farming does not compete with ordinary feed crop land.

Kenya
Energem is the controlling shareholder in the Spectre International Ltd, which manages the Kisumu ethanol plant in Kenya. The molasses-based plant was initiated in the late 1970’s as a state-owned project that was subsequently mothballed in the eighties. It was acquired by Spectre in 2003, who immediately commenced with a rehabilitation project that resulted in the commissioning of the plant in 2004. The yeast plant was completed in 2006.

Energem is the controlling shareholder in Spectre with a 55% share. A local partner, with manufacturing and distribution experience in the region owns 40% while a development trust holds 5% for the benefit of the local community.

Independent valuation and an engineering report completed in March 2004 placed plant pre-commissioning value at US$24 million. The plant replacement value estimated at approx US$100 million, with Energem’s 55% interest included at the book value of US$24 million.

Currently a daily output of 60,000 litres has been achieved whilst Energem focuses on increasing the yeast production and maximizing the usage of natural by products. Production output of up to 120,000 litres per day can be achieved with a marginal investment.

Current products include industrial ethanol for blending with liquid (bio-fuels), potable alcohol for beverages and chemical industries, and yeast.

Besides having access to the water supplied by Lake Victoria the plant is located in the center of a sugar cane growing region where it’s most important raw material, molasses, is readily available.

The plant is well positioned to supply ethanol as a fuel additive to Kenya, Uganda and other nearby countries and this strategy is in line with local governmental aspiration and also complimentary to mid-stream oil activities of the Energem Group.

Through the introduction to the AIM the directors are seeking access to London's capital markets and a broader investor base: no new money is being raised at this stage and no existing shares are being sold by the current shareholders. Major shareholders include the Board, who in aggregate own approximately 28% of the shares in issue, RAB Special Situations (Master) Fund Limited, which holds approximately 17% of the shares in issue and RAB Energy Fund Limited, which holds approximately 8% the shares in issue. Canaccord Adams Limited is acting as Nominated Adviser (NOMAD) and broker to Energem.

References:
Energem: Energem Resources Inc - Announces listing on the London Stock Exchange - Alternative Investment Market (AIM) [*.pdf] - November 26, 2007.

Biopact: Energem acquires jatropha biodiesel project in Mozambique - August 02, 2007


1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Emergen is owned by a shadowy group who do not deserve the hospitality of Africans. Form OpEd News - http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_keith_ha_080207_the_gertler_steinmet.htm

Gertler and partners like Beny and Danny Steinmetz, Nir Livnat, Chaim Leibovitz and Yaakov Neeman run a hornet’s nest of companies involved in African hotspots, including: Dan Gertler International (DGI), Steinmetz Global Resources, International Diamond Industries, NIKANOR and Global Enterprises Corporate.“Dan Gertler is ‘the new kid on the block,’” writes Yossi Melman in Israel’s Haaretz news. “Bold, sophisticated, brutal, he is an adventurer with a short fuse.” Haaratz confirmed that Dan Gertler owns a complex network of interconnected companies, often registered in offshore tax havens and involved in India, Russia, Belgium and the United States, and that Dan Gertler is looking to God for guidance.

April and May 2007 saw strikes and protests leading to the Kabila government’s arbitrary arrest, detention and torture of trade union organizers like Leon Ngoy Bululu; police have also shot protestors.[14] So-called ‘illegal’ diamond workers——disenfranchised local Congolese people forced into “criminal” activities to survive——were summarily executed on MIBA concessions in Mbuji-Mayi. MIBA security guards have also been sniping unemployed diamond miners.

7:42 PM  

Post a Comment

Links to this post:

Create a Link

<< Home