URC Builds Negros Ethanol Plant

January 25, 2013, 4:40pmBy Melody M. Aguiba

Universal Robina Corp. (URC) is taking advantage of the auspicious investment environment in biofuels as it expects to complete by 2014 a 100,000 liter per year plant in Negros Occidental.

This is the right time to put up the ethanol plant as mandated demand is hardly supplied locally with only a 133 million liters per year capacity compared to the needed 480 million liters.

URC’s ethanol plant, costing P1 billion, will have the advantage of proximity to feedstock supply in Negros Occidental where URC also runs the Universal Robina Sugar Milling Co. (Ursumco) and the Southern Negros Devt. Corp. (Sonedco) .

While the opportunities remains to be big which may convince the company to venture in ethanol in its other sugar milling sites, URC sugar general manager, said the Negros area is where the company’s biggest operations are found.

Any future plans for another ethanol plant will be carefully studied based on available sugarcane production area. The ethanol plant to be located within the Ursumco area will use molasses which is a by-product of sugar milling.

“We will be dependent on the supply of feedstock,” said Rene P. Cabati, URC sugar general manager, in an interview.

The ethanol plant is part of URC’s investment in renewable energy as it has also programmed a P2-billion biomass-fired co-generation plant with a 40-megawatt capacity. The plant within the Sonedco area is expected to be completed in 2015.

The demand for ethanol in the Philippines may expand as the government may decide to increase ethanol-gasoline mix beyond the present mandated 10 percent mix.

At the present mix, the country’s importation of 350 million liters is estimated to cost up to P11.55 billion at P32 to P33 per liter.

Republic Act 9367 (Biofuels Act) mandated blending of bioethanol with crude oil-based gasoline that started at five percent mix in 2009 and 10 percent in 2012.

At a 15 percent projected bioethanol-gasoline blend by 2015, the country needs to put up 22 more distilleries that have a capacity of 30 million liters per year.

A Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) study projected that at a 15 percent ethanol mix with gasoline, the Philippines will be able to displace 645.79 million liters of imported gasoline by 2015.

A 20 percent mix by 2020 will enable crude oil-based fuel displacement by 1.043 billion liters; by 2025, 1.202 billion liters; and 2030, 1.34 billion liters.

URC is in a position to expand in renewable energy plants in other areas outside of Negros as it also operates sugar mills in Iloilo and Cagayan Valley in Luzon.

URC also runs the Cagayan Robina Sugar Milling Co which has a 4,000 tons cane per day milling plant in Sto. Domingo, Piat, Cagayan. Its refined sugar production is at 4,300 bags (50 kilos per bag) per day. It is within the region of the bioethanol plant of Green Future Innovations in Isabela.

In Negros, Ursumco has the capacity to mill 8,000 metric tons of sugarcane per day and a 10,000-bag per day refined sugar capacity. Sonedco which has a plant in Kabankalan, Negros Occidental, has a target milling capacity of 9,000 tons of cane per day for raw sugar and 750 tons of sugar refining capacity.

The URC Passi mill is in Passi City (Brgy. Ulang Juan, San Enrique, Iloilo) and was only acquired by URC in 2007.

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