Seaoil to build ethanol distillery

Philippine refiner and fuel retailer Seaoil Philippines Inc. announced plans to build an ethanol distillery in Negros Occidental to sustain its biofuel activities. The company also said it will increase the prices of its fuel products. Seaoil, which had started to blend ethanol to gasoline in 2005, is testing E85 blend with 85% ethanol and introduced the fuel at Php34.75 (US$0.73) per liter, approximately the same price as the E10 blend with 10% ethanol. Stephen Yu, Seaoil’s chief operating officer said, “We can see that ethanol will continue to grow in popularity and usage since bunker or fossil fuel resources are rapidly being depleted worldwide and it makes a lot of sense to invest in planting sugarcane and putting up a distilling plant right now.” (April 2, 2009)