news/updates
San Miguel to build ethanol plants
By Alena Mae S. Flores
Manila Standard Today
September 14, 2007
Food and beverage giant San Miguel Corp. plans to invest between P16 billion and P20 billion in putting up 10 ethanol plants around the Philippines, Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri said yesterday.
Zubiri told reporters yesterday that company officials informed him f the plan.
"They are conducting feasibility studies. Among the areas they are looking at is Tarlac. They are negotiating to convert Azucarera de Tarlac (into an ethanol plant)," the senator said.
The company was earlier reported to be eyeing a 22,000 hectare agricultural land in Bago City, Negros Occidental.
"I challenge them to take out their plans from the drawing board to the sites. What they are doing is laudable but we need actual projects," Zubiri said.
Zubiri is the principal author of the Biofuels Las of 2006 which mandated 5-percent use of ethanol for gasoline-fed engines by 2009.
He said the firm was quoted as saying it could build 10 ethanol plants for a period of 18 months. The Philippines needs 17 plants by 2011. It will need 300 million liters of ethanol to comply with the requirement of the law in 2009.
He said only two ethanol plants were so far on track to meet the 2009 mandate, with an estimated 756 million liters production capacity equivalent to only about 3 percent of the ethanol blend.
"We have put up a safety provision in the law that the Department of energy can bring down the mandated blend to 3 percent or whatever the supply will be achieved at the time but it’s going to be a bad precedent," Zubiri said.
He said the delay in the construction of ethanol facilities was due to the "foot dragging of the investors" and the lack of clear biofuels program from the department.
"The Department of Energy should put its act together. It’s taking them so long to give the endorsements of the ethanol plants to the Board of Investments," Zubiri said.
