Maple 'on track' to be up and running this year

Maple Energy, an integrated energy company, is expected to complete construction and begin commercial operations at its ongoing ethanol project in Q4 2011.

The $254 million (€175 million) greenfield ethanol project, located in Peru, consists of a 7,800 hectare sugarcane plantation and an ethanol plant, which will be able to produce 35 million gallons a year of ethanol from 5,000 tonnes a day of sugarcane. A 37MW power plant will supply power to the entire ethanol project, while any excess power (estimated to be around 17MW) will be sold to the Peruvian national grid.

In addition, the project includes a 60kV electric transmission line to connect the project's facilities to the power grid and a 33/22.9kV distribution system for the plantation and pump stations. It will also feature ethanol storage, and loading and shipping facilities near the Port of Paita.

To date, around 7,800 hectares of land has been cleared, on which the sugarcane will be planted. 3,100 hectares of this has already been planted since the beginning of January 2011.

Praj manufactured most of the fermentation, distillation and dehydration equipment needed to produce ethanol and this has now been delivered to the project site. Uni-systems supplied 98% of the sugarcane handling, juice extraction and juice treatment equipment. The turbo generation equipment, which will produce approximately 37MW, has already been manufactured by Siemens and is on site.

Contractor Haug S.A. is responsible for the construction of the ethanol production facility, and began installing these major equipment packages in September 2010. The majority of the civil works for the ethanol plant have now been completed. Over half of the equipment supplied by Uni-systems and Praj have been erected and installed, as have the major components of the steam turbine and generator for the power generation facilities.

Haug finished installing the 60kV transmission line in May 2011, and parts of the electric distribution system for the pump stations have also been completed. In addition, Penta Tanks Terminals is continuing work on the ethanol storage, loading, and shipping facilities near the Port of Paita. The foundation work needed for the storage tanks finished in Q1 2011, while fabrication was completed in Q2.

Sixty percent of the submarine pipeline, which will transport ethanol from the storage tanks to ships, has been completed; the storage, loading and shipping facilities are expected to be in operation and available for use when the ethanol project begins operating commercially.