Peru’s Pomalca begins work on ethanol plant

07 April 2008 21:25  [Source: ICIS news]

CARACAS (ICIS news)--Peruvian sugar producer Agroindustrial Pomalca has begun work on a plant that is expected to produce 150,000 litres/day of ethanol beginning in 2009, a company executive said on Monday.

The plan is a scaled down version of one that was floated last year when Pomalca said it was considering building a 400,000 litre/day plant with Tuman, another agricultural concern.

The two companies were unable to reach an agreement. As a result, Pomalca is building a smaller plant on its own, said general manager Victor Antonio Becerril to Peru’s state news agency.

Brazil's Grupo Dedini has been commissioned to manufacture the plant's distillation and dehydration units and should deliver the machinery by the end of the year, Becerril told state newswire Andina.

Becerril corrected previous media reports that Dedini was also an investor in the project, saying the world's largest producer of alcohol distillation plants is only providing the equipment.

The deal is mostly being financed by private investors but the state has a 32% participation in Pomalca, which it expects to sell later this year through ProInversion, a group promoting private investment in Peru.

A growing internal market for biofuel as well as a free trade agreement between the US and Peru has subsequently prompted interest from both local and international private investors.

In addition to several ethanol and biodiesel projects that are expected to start up this year there are other companies looking for land to cultivate sugar cane, palm oil and jatropha to produce renewable fuels, Peru's energy minister said earlier this year.

For more on ethanol please visit ICIS Chemical Intelligence

Bookmark Simon Robinson’s Big Biofuels Blog for some independent thinking on biofuels

By: Jasmina Kelemen
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