Work starts on first bio-ethanol plant in north

The PetroVietnam Bio-ethanol Company (PVB) yesterday began construction of northern Vietnam’s first bio-ethanol factory in Phu Tho Province. PVB, a unit of the nation’s oil and gas giant PetroVietnam, will spend around US$80 million on the project, with about US$59 million going to an engineering-procurement-construction contract. Covering 50 hectares in Co Tiet Commune, 80 kilometers from Hanoi, the forthcoming bio-ethanol plant will be able to turn out 100,000 cubic meters a year in the first phase, said Nguyen Phuong Dong, chairman of PVB. The factory will use cassava and sugarcane as feedstock to produce ethanol with a daily consumption of about 7,000 tons of dried cassava equivalent. Nguyen Quoc Khanh, general director of PV Oil, told the Daily on the sidelines of the groundbreaking ceremony for the bio-ethanol plant that Vietnam annually imported 15-16 million tons of fuels while consumption was growing at an annual rate of 10%. The construction of such a bio-ethanol factory will help address the needs for more fuels and at the same time reduce the use of fossil fuels by generating renewable energy, he said. (June 22, 2009)