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Three SA biofuel refineries set to come out of blocks
SOUTH AFRICA - The government's biofuel strategy has given impetus to at least three large refinery projects that are at relatively advanced stages of planning, at the same time as producers of maize and other foodstuffs have been left out in the cold, writes Ingi Salgado, Business Report.The first project is a joint venture between petrochemicals group Sasol, the state-owned Central Energy Fund (CEF) and black economic empowerment partner Siyanda Biodiesel to produce 100 million litres of biodiesel a year from soya beans at Newcastle, Sasolburg or Secunda.
The parties would meet next month to decide whether to proceed, Sibusiso Ngubane, project manager for the Energy Development Corporation, a CEF subsidiary, said yesterday.
The other two projects are separate joint ventures between the CEF and state development financier the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC). The first is mooted to produce 100 million litres of bioethanol from mostly sugar cane in Hoedspruit, Mpumalanga; and the second may produce the same quantity of bioethanol from sugar beet in Cradock, Eastern Cape.
Ngubane said the CEF and IDC boards would be approached for approvals in February. Prefeasibility and basic engineering design had already been completed, while environmental impact assessments had been commissioned.
Several proposed biofuel projects have been on ice pending release of the long-awaited strategy. Last week, minerals and energy minister Buyelwa Sonjica outlined its key features, although the document has yet to be released.
Sonjica said that only biofuels produced from sugar cane, sugar beet, canola, sunflower seeds and soya beans would be permitted in a trial phase lasting until 2013. She also chopped biofuel production targets from 4.5 percent of the country's fuel pool (as proposed in the draft strategy) to a conservative 2 percent.
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