By Wendell Roelf
CAPE TOWN Feb 20 (Reuters) – South Africa plans to
invest 2 billion rand ($258.5 million) to build an ethanol plant
and help a nascent biofuels sector that could reduce the
country’s reliance on imported fuel, an industry player said on
Monday.
Africa’s biggest economy imports about 60 percent of its
crude oil needs and became a net importer of finished petroleum
products several years ago.
In recent months, South Africa has been hit by fuel
shortages due to planned and unplanned shutdowns at four of its
six refineries.
Roak Crew, chief executive at Sugar Beet RSA, which is
implementing the project in collaboration with the government,
said the plant could start operating in 2014. It would initially
produce some 90 million litres of fuel a year as sugar beet and
grain sorghum are converted into ethanol.
Output at the plant to be located in the impoverished
Eastern Cape province could eventually be raised to 200 million
litres a year, he said, but concerns among refiners regarding
fuel blending and feedstock could hamper development.
“At the moment there is no requirement by the fossil fuel
producers to blend biofuels into their products, and without
this happening, the industry will not be sustainable,” Crew told
Reuters.
The plant would provide a major boost to the development of
South Africa’s biofuels industry, which has been held back by an
inadequate regulatory regime and concerns that biofuels would
hurt food security and impact food prices.
The plant would be funded by the government, which has a
target of having biofuels annually contribute 2 percent, around
400 million litres, to liquid fuels consumption by 2013.
Continued…
