Filinvest to build ethanol facility

Philippine-based Filinvest Development Corp. (FDC) said it would spend Php800 million (US$17.98 million) for an ethanol plant, which it intends to put up after raising the capacity of its sugar mills and refinery. The proposed plant capacity is 100,000 liters a day, or 30 million liters a year, which is expected to meet 10-15% of the country’s ethanol needs. “We’re now studying the ethanol plant but we have to complete first the expansion of the sugar mills and refinery because we would use their by-products in the ethanol plant,” FDC president Josephine Gotianun-Yap said. The Biofuels Act of 2006 mandates the use of a 5% ethanol blend in fuel sold in the country. To pave the way for its venture into biofuels, FDC is raising its sugar milling and refining capacities under its subsidiary, Pacific Sugar Holdings Corp. Pacific Sugar owns two sugar mills, Davao Sugar Mill and Cotabato Sugar Mill, which together have a milling capacity of 9,000 metric tons per day and a refining capacity of 6,000 50-kilogram bags per day. (June 10, 2008)