New biofuel plant may rise in Negros Occidental

A group of businessmen and sugarcane farmers led by Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Roberto L. Montelibano is partnering with foreign investors to build an ethanol plant in Negros Occidental, Philippines. The ethanol plant, which will cost Php3-5 billion (US$62.87-104.78 million), will be built in the central Negros town of Murcia. It will be a multi-feedstock, autonomous cogeneration facility that will use sugar-cane and sweet sorghum as feedstock and agricultural waste as fuel. The plant will have a production capacity of 200,000 liters of ethanol a day and 19 megawatts, or 19,000 kilowatts-per-hour, of power. Montelibano said they will tap small farmers and agrarian reform beneficiaries as contract growers for sugarcane and sweet sorghum. (November 5, 2009)