Argentina’s largest ethanol plant commences operations

Austria-based Vogelbusch Biocommodities has announced the opening of a bioethanol plant in Alejandro Roca, Argentina this October.

The plant, owned by producing company Promaíz, has a capacity of 420,000 litres per day which makes it the largest of its kind in the country. The facility uses ethanol technology licensed by Vogelbusch designed for both high performance in terms of primary energy and freshwater consumption and for full compliance with emission standards.

In Argentina, petrol must contain 5% ethanol and the fuel ethanol production is government controlled under a quota system which assigns supply shares to the producers. Promaí made its first ethanol delivery within this quota system from the new plant in August.

‘We always attach importance to the environmental sustainability of plants we design,’ says Ernst Trimmel, project manager at Vogelbusch. ‘With this new Promaíz facility, maximum recycling and recovery of process streams defined its design from the very start.’

Read a more in-depth article on the construction this new ethanol plant in the November/December issue of Biofuels International.