Australia joins ethanol rush with new plant
Date: 06-Jun-02
Country: AUSTRALIA
Author: Michael Byrnes
The plant at Dalby, about 250 km west of Brisbane, will produce 60 million litres of ethanol a year from sorghum, feed wheat and maize and will be the largest ethanol plant in Australia.
Queensland's Environment Minister Dean Wells told a conference in Brisbane yesterday the new plant could provide a catalyst for development of more ethanol production in the state, from both grain and sugarcane-based products.
Bill Elliott, ethanol project manager for privately-owned Toowoomba-based Petro Fuel and Lubricants Pty Ltd, earlier told Reuters the plant would produce beyond its nominal capacity to up to 80 million litres a year and was expected to be commissioned at the end of 2003.
First ground would be broken later this year, and construction would start early next year, Elliott said.
Wells said stage one will use about 150,000 tonnes of grain a year.
Ethanol from the new plant would be blended with petrol sold through Petro's 40 or so service stations in Queensland and through independents and oil majors' service stations, he said.
"The proposal has been the subject of a 12-month study by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the company has informed me that they are ready to finance and develop the project," Wells said in a statement.
POTENTIAL EXPANSION
He told the inaugural Ethanol Conference yesterday that Petro's decision highlighted the significant potential for expansion of an ethanol industry in Queensland.
"We are actively seeking alternatives to traditional fuels. We need to find ways to reduce our use of fossil fuels and therefore decrease greenhouse gas emissions," Wells said.
The production and use of ethanol in Queensland had enormous potential, with flow-on effects that were beneficial economically, socially and environmentally, he said.
The Petro project had been facilitated by the Queensland government's Environmental Protection Agency, supported by the Department of State Development and the Dalby Town Council, which was helping to secure land for the project, Wells said.
Elliott said the economics of the plant depended on ethanol remaining free of federal excise fuel tax, and said the outlook for other projects was very promising.
However, he and other industry figures reiterated a call for the federal government to require oil majors to blend ethanol with petrol.
Petro's ethanol plant upstages vocal calls by Australia's struggling sugar industry for the establishment of sugar-based ethanol plants in Queensland.
The sugar industry believes ethanol plants could inject new profits into an industry plagued by low world prices caused by massive production in Brazil, the world leader in ethanol.
The planned new Australian plant comes as Australian and global attention focuses on ethanol as a clean fuel, with Europe and the United States building ethanol fuel industries.
Existing Australian ethanol production is comparatively small-scale and mainly for export to Asian markets as an alcohol additive.
