Shuttered bioethanol plant Kazakhstan set to relaunch by end of 2016

A mothballed bioethanol plant in Kazakhstan is set to resume production by the end of 2016.

The Investment Fund of Kazakhstan is working to bring the Biokhim plant, located in the town of Tayinsha in the North Kazakhstan region, back online with the first stage scheduled for December 2016.

The plant will produce bioethanol for the Pavlodar oil refinery, with later deliveries scheduled for the Shymkent refinery in the south of the country.

The Pavlodar refinery, which is currently undergoing modernisation work along with Shymkent, will begin producing Euro-5 and Euro-6 petrol in early 2017.

It is expected that the relaunch of the Biokhim plant will provide jobs for up to 400 people.

The $82.2 million (€75.6m) Biokhim project was originally commissioned in 2006 by a company called Basko to produce 57,000 tpy of ethanol from locally-sourced wheat.

But distribution and sales difficulties soon forced the plant to close after it began production.

Biokhim was previously planned for restart in the first half of 2015.