Joint venture to build ethanol plant in Isabela

A joint venture firm is building a Php6 billion (US$138.09 million) ethanol plant in Isabela to augment the supply of ethanol in the Philippines. The project aims to produce 54 million liters of ethanol and around 100,000 megawatts of electricity per year. In a statement, Reynaldo P. Bantug, president of Green Future Innovations, Inc., said the plant will help reduce importation of ethanol by oil companies. “Right now we import our fuel needs and foreign exchange goes to the rich Middle Eastern nations. This project will grow biofuel in the field,” said Bantug. The bioethanol plant, which will rise in San Mariano, Isabela, is a joint venture between Japan’s Itochu Corp. and JGC Corp., Taiwanese holding company GCO, and the Philippine Bioethanol and Energy Investments Corp. It will use sugar cane from 11,000 hectares of land as raw material. The plant is expected to be operational by the second quarter of 2012. (January 31, 2011)