Pentland bioethanol facility nearing construction

Construction of a long-awaited Pentland Bio-Energy bioethanol plant in northeastern Australia could finally be set to begin.

The plant project, to be located on a 66,152 hectare plot in Pentland, Queensland, has been in development since 2004 but now it could at long last see building begin in June 2016.

With commissioning scheduled for June 2018, planned production at the facility is expected to rise to 344 million litres by 2020, which at that point should be the annual production level.

But according to Tony D’Alessandro, managing director at Renewable Developments Australia (RDA), the project is scalable and staged development could see production increased to 1 billion litres annually.

‘We already have 20 investors on board for the project, including a US Fortune 100 company that will purchase all bioethanol produced at the facility for at least 15 years,’ D’Alessandro says.

As feedstock, the plant will use sugar cane and sorghum grown on site at the 19,100 hectares set aside for the purpose.

The Pentland site will also feature a co-generation plant, which will be powered by on-site by-product biogas.

‘As soon as the stage one plant is commissioned, construction will start on an identically sized stage two plant. We have also planned for stage three,’ says D’Alessandro.

RDA is currently working on securing access to 75,000ML of water required by the bioethanol production process, the last obstacle remaining for the project.

Source: North Queensland Register