By Neil Jerome C. Morales
LOCAL firm Central Luzon Bioenergy Corp. and its Korean partner will invest $300 million to put up a bioethanol plant in Central Luzon.
Under a memorandum of understanding signed on Thursday, the partners will start operations of the bioethanol plant in Clark, Pampanga in 2012 using sugarcane as feedstock.
The plant will have an output of 150 million liters of bioethanol per year.
"That becomes the the biggest project of ethanol we have for the Philippines," Marriz B. Agbon, president of the Philippine Agricultural Development and Commercial Corp. (PADCC) told reporters.
The PADCC, the marketing arm of the Agriculture department, is the one tasked to broker foreign investments and identify possible agribusiness investment lands.
To date, local bioethanol producers like the San Carlos Bioenergy, Inc., produce only 30 million liters of bioethanol per year.
© 2010 BusinessWorld Publishing Corporation.
