Filipino-Japanese group to invest $100 million on ethanol, biomass plants in Luzon

MANILA, Philippines - Filipino-Japanese joint venture Green Future Innovations (GFI) will invest $100 million to put up an ethanol processing and a biomass power plant in Northern Luzon, a company official said.

Erwin Co, GFI project development manager, told reporters that they will construct a 200,000-liter per day (54 million liters a year) ethanol processing facility in Isabela.

“We hope to hold our groundbreaking by December this year,” he said.

He said they also plan to put up a 19-megawatt co-generation power plant in San Mariano, Isabela. Once operational, the ethanol facility will make available 19 MW of renewable energy, about 13 MW of which can be offered to the Luzon grid to help ease the projected power supply problem in the area.

The integrated ethanol project, he said, will be completed in two years’ time, or by 2011.

“It professes the company’s intention to invest heavily in a state-of-the-art bioethanol facility in Isabela,” Co said.

“GFI plans to produce 54 million liters of ethanol from a total of 11,000 hectares of sugarcane. It will only use top-of-the-line material for sugarcane production to attain the optimal yield per hectare and the adoption of the best and sustainable agricultural practices.”

GFI is a joint venture among Filipino shareholders led by Wilson Uy, the biggest producer of tobacco in Regions 1 and 2, JGC Corp. and Itochu Corp. of Japan. 

Itochu is actively expanding its business for the reduction of greenhouse gas in the Philippines and any other countries to contribute to measures by the Japanese government for preventing global warming.

Itochu has evolved and grown over 150 years into a sogo shosha, engaging in domestic trading, import/export, and overseas trading of various products such as textiles, machinery, information and communications-related products, metals, products related to oil and other energy sources, general merchandise, chemicals, and provisions and food.

In addition, Itochu has made multifaceted investments in insurance agencies, finance, construction, real estate trading, and warehousing as well as operations and businesses incidental or related to those fields.

GFI is a member of the Ethanol Producers Association of the Philippines (EPAP), a non-profit industry association promoting use of clean fuel in support of the country’s bid for energy security, green job creation, rural development and climate change mitigation. It was organized in 2007 to ensure the attainment of the targeted five percent blend for all gasoline products sold in the country.