URC receives 1st ethanol order from Flying V

MANILA, Philippines - Gokongwei-owned Universal Robina Corp (URC) has received its first fuel ethanol order from Flying V, in a deal that supports the government’s push for renewable energy, as well as a sustainable sugar industry, the company announced over the weekend following the signing of an agreement with the oil firm.

Under the agreement, URC would supply Flying V with fuel-grade anhydrous ethanol suitable for gasoline blending, from its ethanol plant in Negros Oriental.

Flying V, an independent oil company with over 350 stations nationwide, uses blended gasoline with at least 10 percent fuel ethanol in compliance with the government’s bioethanol program.

“URC fully supports the government’s renewable energy program,” said Rene Cabati, general manager of URC’s Sugar Business Unit.

Furthermore, Cabati said the fuel ethanol supply agreement between URC and Flying V also reinforces the Sugar Regulatory Administration’s efforts toward a sustainable sugar industry through diversification.

“It doesn’t have to be only sugar that we can produce from sugar cane.  We can produce fuel ethanol,” said Cabati.

Cabati said diversification is part of the Philippines’ preparation for the Asean Economic Community 2015.

“This diversification into a higher-value product from a widely available crop in the Philippines will prepare the local sugar industry for Asean integration,” he said.

Tariff on imported sugar across will fall to five percent when Asean’s economies are integrated into an “Economic Community” next year, URC said.

URC’s newly inaugurated fuel ethanol plant is located in Barangay Tamisu, Bais City in Negros Oriental and has a rated production capacity of 100,000 liters per day of fuel-grade ethanol using sugar molasses generated from three sugar mills in Negros.

It is also the first in South-east Asia to use the “spent wash incineration boiler” that is environmentally safe and hazards-free, according to the company.

The fuel ethanol plant is one of two projects URC undertook to support the government’s renewable energy program and its search for alternative uses for sugarcane, official said.

Aside from the fuel ethanol, the company is also set to commission a 46-MW biomass cogeneration power plant in Negros Occidental.

“Both projects guarantee that sugarcane planters will have a ‘home’ for their canes, and sugar farm and sugar mill workers will continue to have jobs, even as we face competition from sugar producers abroad,” Cabati said.