Other News

The federal government is raising the target for the amount of ethanol used in the US petrol supply to 11.1 billion gallons. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set its 2009 Renewable Fuels Standard at 10.21%, equating to 11.1 billion gallons of ethanol. The 2008 RFS was 7.76%, or an approximate 9 billion gallons. The US Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 formed a…
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Agribusiness US Sugar has entered into an agreement with Illinois-based renewable energy company Coskata to explore building a 100 million gallon a year cellulosic ethanol facility in Clewiston, Florida. The facility would be the world's largest second generation ethanol facility. It would convert left-over sugarcane material into ethanol, and would help Florida meet its aggressive second…
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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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Ethanol producer VeraSun Energy expects to report a Q3 net loss of approximately $464 million (€367.6 million). The figure is more than four times the number quoted in an earlier announcement that accelerated the company's fall into bankruptcy protection. The second largest US producer, with about 13% of the nation's ethanol capacity, filed for bankruptcy protection in early…
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Arizona-based food processor Tyson Foods and technology provider Syntroleum have broken ground on a joint-venture (JV) biodiesel plant that will turn animal fat into high-quality diesel and jet fuel. The $138 million (101 million Euro's) Dynamic Energy plant in Geismar, Louisiana, is scheduled to produce 75 million gallon/year (284 million litres/year) of the renewable fuel by 2010. Tyson…
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US-based White Mountain Group is expected to inject US$16 million (€12.6 million) worth of investment into Australian Biodiesel Group (ABG) in exchange for 51% of ABG's issued share capital. White Mountain will provide US$6.2 million to install a new processing and refining plant to be located on current ABG premises. Another US$3 million will go to securing a technology licence for the…
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German bioenergy company Verbio has restarted its 100,000 tonne/year bioethanol plant in Zorbig in Germany's Saxony-Anhalt state as prices have stabilised and demand improved. 'In a generally declining market, the price of bioethanol has stabilised,' says Klaus-Dieter Bettien, general manager of the Zorbig site. Demand was rising, partly due to an increase in bioethanol blending…
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Germany-based biofuel producer Verbio has reported higher profits with the aid of growing biodiesel exports, but made losses on bioethanol. ‘About 40% of biodiesel production was exported, largely to east Europe,’ the company says, adding that Germany's increased taxes on biofuels resulted in a large cut in sales by all producers inside Germany. It estimated sales by all producers of…
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Boeing and Air New Zealand have announced that they will conduct the first flight test of second generation sustainable biofuel in an airliner on 3 December. The planned test will be carried out using an Air New Zealand Boeing 747 flying from Auckland, New Zealand. During the flight, one of the jumbo jet's four Rolls-Royce engines will run partly on jatropha-based biofuel. Successful biofuelled…
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Carotech, one of Malaysia’s largest producers of palm methyl ester, has signed a RM200 million (€43.9 million) contract with Trafigura Beheer, Amsterdam, for the export of its refined and distilled palm biodiesel to the US and Europe. ‘Trafigura has been our customer since 2007 and this agreement is important to us as it would take up more than 50% of our capacity and provide certainty to…
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Mexico's state-run petroleum company Pemex plans to start producing petrol blended with 6% ethanol over the next four years. Pemex plans to phase out the use of MTBE as a petroleum oxygenate in Guadalajara, Monterrey and Mexico City. The company plans to begin testing 6% ethanol fuel at two service stations and in a test fleet starting in November. Pemex will purchase ethanol from…
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Switzerland-based biodiesel producer Biopetrol Industries began to bring its 400,000 tonne a year plant in Rotterdam on stream this week and plans to run the operation at half capacity in 2009. Initially the company expected the plant to be fully operational by the end of Q1 2009 but the company would run just one of two lines due to conservative planning and the outlook for demand and…
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The ethanol market is set to swell to 27.7 billion tonnes over the next four years, a report by Global Industry Analysts finds. Fuel-ethanol is experiencing great interest brought on largely by the ban on MTBE in several countries and its resulting replacement with ethanol. In the US, the renewable fuels standard mandates the use of approximately 8 billion gallons of ethanol by the year 2012.…
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