Philippines government arm calls for industry to produce more bioethanol form sugarcane

The Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA), an agency run by the Philippines government, is urging players in the industry to invest more in power co-generation and production of bioethanol from sugarcane amid volatile sugar prices in the world market.

SRA policy and planning manager Rosemarie Gumera said the agency is strengthening its product diversification by encouraging stakeholders to invest more in the manufacture of bioethanol, according to Philstar.com.

Bioethanol is produced using molasses, a by-product of the sugar refining process.

“We need more products from sugarcane that would benefit our farmers so that in case of sudden drop in sugar prices, they would have a fallback industry,” Gumera told reporters.

Gumera said two additional bioethanol plants, Cavite Biofuels Producer and Progreen Agricorp Inc. (former Emperador Distillery), would operate next year with over 60 million litres of combined capacity.

Therefore, the industry will bring total bio-ethanol production capacity of the existing eight facilities to up to 340 million litres, which is around 50% of the mandatory requirement.