Investors boost Philippine ethanol capacity

The Philippines’ Department of Energy (DOE) and Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) have received at least 20 applications from companies seeking to establish ethanol-making facilities in the country, amounting to a potential investment of Php80 billion (US$167 billion). The government’s Alternative Fuels Program, which mandates that ethanol-blended gasoline comprise at least 5% of the total gasoline sold in the country from February 2009, has led to a demand of about 200 million liters of bioethanol for 2009. The DOE has so far already endorsed 13 projects, which envisage a combined capacity addition of about 645 million liters per year (lpy), for approval by the Board of Investments (BOI). Two of these include South Korean companies. One Korean firm has started planting the feedstock and spent over Php150 million (US$ 3.14 million) for the propagation of jatropha. The other Korean firm will put up a bioethanol plant worth Php4 billion (US$83.6 million) in a 1,500-hectare land in Tarlac province. There is also a possibility of Sun Care fuels Corp., a Japanese firm, leasing up to 50,000 hectares in the Philippines to grow and process sunflowers, which could emit nitrogen into the soil and suitable for rotation planting, into cooking oil and biofuel. They had started to test operations on a three-hectare plot within a university in Mindanao in southern Philippines. Also, Australia-based renewable energy company JatOil Ltd. plans to expand its jatropha plantations in Vietnam and is considering a jatropha joint venture in the Philippines. (April 7/14/15, 2009)