Colombian bioethanol firm to sell product to oil and gas firm Terpel

Colombian biofuels company Bioenergy will begin selling bioethanol to Bogotá-based oil and gas leader Terpel, according to media reports.

According to a report in Finance Colombia, the move marks the beginning of the Bioenergy’s commercialisation process.

Bioenergy has the capacity to produce up to 504,000 litres of ethanol per day, which will increase the mixing of this product with gasoline in the centre of the country, according to a statement on the company's website.

The company contributes up to 38% of the ethanol produced in Colombia.

For the production of ethanol, Bioenergy has its own sugarcane crops, which is processed to extract the product through processes of evaporation, fermentation, distillation and dehydration.

The company has so far shipped around 110,000 litres of ethanol since it was certified as a producer by Colombia’s regulator on 31 January,2017, it said in a statement, and the agreement calls for Bioenergy to provide a volume of ethanol in accordance with Terpel’s demand.

Bioenergy, which operates from its El Alcaraván plant in Puerto Lopez in the department of Meta, has produced a total of 800,000 litres and has now set a goal “to enter into agreements with other wholesalers,” a company representative told Finance Colombia.

“The commercialisation of ethanol marks a very important milestone for Bioenergy in its consolidation as the largest agroindustrial complex of ethanol production in Colombia,” said Rafael Pittaluga, general manager of Bioenergy, quoted in Finance Colombia. “We expect to conclude new commercial agreements with other wholesalers that allow us to provide cleaner fuel to Colombians.”

This story was written by Liz Gyekye, editor of Biofuels International.