Other News

Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras expects to export 605 million litres of ethanol in 2008. Petrobras downstream director Paulo Roberto Costa says that 505 million litres will be shipped to the US, with the remaining 100 million litres sailing to Japan. Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of ethanol and second largest producer after the US. The country’s large sugarcane market…
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Ineos Enterprises has postponed plans to build a £65 million (€77.6 million) biodiesel plant in Scotland, UK, due to unfavourable economic conditions. The plant, to be located in Grangemouth near Falkirk, had a nameplate capacity of 500,000 tonnes. Market volatility has led the company to return a £9 million grant which had been allocated by the Scottish government for the project. The…
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US Green Energy Technology (GET) and the Philippines-based biotechnology firm Secura International (SIC) have signed an agreement to construct a $30 million (€23.7 million) biodiesel plant using malunggay oil as feedstock. Malunggay is a versatile plant that can grow anywhere, except in rice-growing, flooded areas. It is suitable for rainfall of less than 1,000 millimeters a year and needs…
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Stratos Renewables, an agro-energy company developing a South American sugarcane ethanol operation, has secured sufficient land in the northern coastal region of Peru required for the production of up to 90 million gallons a year of sugarcane-based ethanol. Stratos intends to use this land for extensive sugarcane cultivation, milling and distillation into ethanol primarily for export. Peru has…
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Malaysia’s government has approved 91 biodiesel production licences with a total capacity of 10.2 million tonnes of biodiesel. Deputy minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities senator A. Kohilan Pillay says that to further promote the use of renewable and sustainable forms of energy on 30 October the government approved the mandatory blending of 5% palm methyl ester with petroleum…
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The government of South Korea has announced plans to increase the biodiesel blend ratio from its current level of 1% to 3% by 2012. In an effort to meet these targets, the government has extended industry tax breaks and has taken steps to increase local feedstock production to minimise import dependency, according to a report by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural…
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Espoo, Finland-based VTT Technical Research Center, the largest applied research organisation in Northern Europe, has launched a three-year project to produce biodiesel from waste generated by a Vietnamese fish processing plant. VTT is working with organisations in France, Germany, the UK and Vietnam on the project known as ENERFISH to construct a biodiesel facility next to the Hiep Thanh…
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Norway-based biofuels firm ScanFuel is due to begin a jatropha-based biodiesel production project outside Ghana's second largest city. ScanFuel expects to start commercial operations in Kumasi, Ghana, early in 2009, producing 5,000 barrels a day of crude oil equivalent by 2015. ScanFuel's operation will plant 10,000 hectares of the high oil-yielding jatropha plant, with another 10,000…
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A new joint venture between a unit of Kawasaki Heavy Industries and an agricultural public corporation led by the prefectural government of Akita in northern Japan is the country’s third waste to ethanol project. The projects, making ethanol from farm waste with subsidies, will pay for building and running of plants totalling about €24.8 million over 5 years. The ministry set aside 3.2…
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Renewable energy company Principle Energy plans to start building a $290 million (€224 million) bioethanol plant in Mozambique in 2009. Principle Energy, in which London-listed fund manager Principle Capital has a stake, raised $70 million towards the project in 2007. To date this year it has held back from raising a targeted $90 million due to adverse market conditions. 'Seeing as the…
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Italian oil refiner Saras plans to start up a 200,000 tonne biodiesel plant in Cartagena, Spain, in December. The plant will use various vegetable oils as feedstock. The refiner has estimated investment in the plant at €35 million. Spain is due to introduce a 2.5% compulsory target for biofuels share in total car fuel use next year and raise it to 3.9% in 2010. That target will require…
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Poet, the US' largest ethanol producer, is engaging in buyout talks with a number of ethanol companies. Several US ethanol companies have encountered financial battles brought on by volatile market conditions. VeraSun Energy, the second largest US producer, sought bankruptcy protection on 31 October after it suffered significant losses in Q3 due to a dramatic rise in the cost of…
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Dominican Republic-based W2E Resources will construct a plant to produce ethanol and electricity, transforming solid waste, including sugarcane bagasse, at a cost of around US$200 million (€158.5 million). The company is undertaking the environmental impact study and engineering of the final draft, with construction expected to begin early next year, and around 24 months for the plant's…
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Cambodia opened its first ethanol factory to generate biofuel from cassava flour on Monday 17 November. The plant has a capacity of 36,000 tonnes a year. ‘This factory will become the market place of cassava product for local farmers,’ Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen comments. The project, with $40 million (€31.5 million) investment from MH Bio-energy Group of South Korea, has already…
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