British firm to put up P1.5-B ethanol plant

Bronzeoak Phils. will start the construction of a P1.5-billion ethanol processing plant in the southern part of Bukidnon province by June this year.

This was revealed by Bukidnon Rep. Juan Miguel Zubiri, vice chairman of the House committee on natural resources and the author of the Biofuels Bill which will promote the use of ethanol and coco-biodiesel in the transport sector.

Zubiri said the UK-based firm had purchased last month a 24-hectare property in Kibawe, Southern Bukidnon to host the plant, which will be named Southern Bukidnon Bio-Ethanol Inc.

"It is close to North Cotabato, therefore all the corn areas of North Cotabato can be used for sugar planting. The plant is capable of producing 150,000 liters of ethanol daily," the lawmaker said.

Zubiri said about eight hectares of sugar plantation from four barangays in Southern Bukidnon will supply raw materials needed by the plant.

He noted that the plant will not be a co-generation plant since electricity in Mindanao is cheap. "They will lose money if they would compete with existing hydropower plants in Mindanao. So they will just increase the capacity of the plant."

"Bronzeoak already has a blueprint. They will start groundbreaking by June this year. Due diligence will be completed by May," he said.

The proposed Bukidnon-based facility will be Bronzeoak’s second ethanol plant in the country after a similar ethanol facility in San Carlos, Negros Occidental.

Bronzeoak is the joint venture partner of the state-owned holding firm National Development Co. (NDC) in San Carlos Bio-Energy Inc. (SCBI). The integrated facility will reportedly have a cane milling plant with a through-put capacity of 1,500 metric tons of cane daily and a co-generation power plant that will have a production of about nine megawatts. It has likewise a distillery plant, which will also produce 100,000 liters of bio-ethanol a day.

Ethanol is an alternative energy resource produced from crops such as corn, grain sorghum, wheat, sugar and other agricultural feedstocks. It can be used as a transportation fuel, as a blend to gasoline, a component of reformulated gasoline, or a primary fuel with gasoline as blend.