London - Europe's largest biorefinery could be fully operational within days, Alwyn Hughes, chief executive of UK biofuels company Ensus said on Friday.
"We are in the middle of commissioning the plant and its days, maximum weeks, away before we are fully operational," he told Reuters in an interview.
"We were shooting for the end of the year but if weather conditions like this prevail we are clearly going to be impacted by that," he added as heavy snow blanketed north-east England where the refinery is located.
Hughes said he remained confident that the refinery would ramp up to full capacity during the first quarter of 2010.
The Ensus plant is expected to use 1.1 million tonnes of wheat a year to produce 400 million to 450 million liters of bioethanol and about 350,000 tonnes of high protein animal feed.
When it comes on line it will be the largest biorefinery in Europe and the largest wheat refinery in the world.
It will dwarf the largest current bioethanol plant in the UK, a British Sugar facility in eastern England with an annual production capacity of about 70 million liters.
Traders have said the refinery will transform Britain's balance sheet for wheat with its intake representing a sizeable chunk of the country's exportable surplus which for the current season is estimated by the farm ministry at 2.14 million tonnes.
Ensus is owned by two U.S. private equity funds, the Carlyle Group and Riverstone.
SILOS NEARLY FULL
The company has already been filling its silos with wheat and has so far just used UK supplies which have been brought in by road. "The silos are pretty well full. It has all come in by road so far but we've always said we will bring some in by ship and no doubt that will happen in the early part of the New Year as we are up and running," Hughes said.
Hughes said wheat prices were currently favorable for the refinery with a large global surplus keeping prices in check. Feed wheat futures on Liffe were trading around 103.75 pounds on Friday, marginally down from 105.75 pounds at the end of 2008 and well below a peak of 197.50 pounds during the 2007 commodities boom.
"The market conditions are very encouraging," he said.
Biofuels are seen by advocates as a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change although some environmental groups have argued some may actually worsen the problem by contributing to the destruction of rainforests. "It is increasingly important to our customers that it (the biofuel) has a good carbon footprint, good sustainability and doesn't have a negative impact on the rainforest," Hughes said.
"We will have carbon savings well in excess of 60 percent. We tick the boxes," he added.
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