Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter
Minister of Commerce, Science and Technology, Phillip Paulwell (second right), and Ambassador Peter King (right), special adviser to the minister, tour the Petrojam Ethanol facilities with members of the Brazilian delegation during the official opening of the Petrojam Ethanol Dehydration Plant at Marcus Garvey Drive, Kingston, yesterday. - JUNIOR DOWIE/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
PETROLEUM CORPORATION OF JAMAICA'S (PETROJAM) REFURBISHED Ethanol Dehydration Plant on Marcus Garvey Drive, Kingston, was opened yesterday.
The plant, originally due to be completed in the first quarter of 2005, will supply the United States with 150 million litres of ethanol per year. Another 220 million litres of capacity are to be added, with 70 million of this coming in the long run.
Otacilio Coser Filho, director at Coinex, the Brazilian firm which is a partner in the plant, promised that further expansion would be
forthcoming.
SUGAR INDUSTRY TO PROFIT
The plant, according to Phillip Paulwell, the Minister of Commerce, Science and Technology, provides an opportunity for the local sugar industry to profit from the refinery. Ethanol is produced from sugar cane although initially all the feedstock will be supplied by the Brazil-based Coinex.
"This is now the opportunity for all interests to unite ... the sugar industry, our cane farmers to increase cultivation of sugar cane, and for the processing industry to commit to a sustained market for this new by-product from sugar cane ... a market without the restriction of quotas," Paulwell said.
This, according to Petrojam, would require the planting of 9,000 additional hectares of sugar cane, to supply 57 million litres for local gasolene.
"We welcome this, but we will, of course, have to wait until they actually start using local feedstock so that any further planting can begin. We are certainly anxious," said chairman of the All-Island Cane Farmers Association, Allan Rickards.
Mr. Paulwell also announced that the Government plans, in the last quarter of next year, to ban the use of MTBE as a fuel additive and replace it with locally produced ethanol which is more environmentally friendly. A pilot project will begin on May 1 involving government-owned and volunteer-driven cars which will run on fuel including 10 per cent ethanol.
Following a successful pilot study MTBE would then be banned, he said, as it has been in California, with other states in the U.S. expected to follow.
The Government has a long-term target of gasolene being made of 25 per cent ethanol, the same proportion as used in Brazil.
Under the 1983 Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA), ethanol produced in Jamaica, unlike Brazil, will avoid U.S. import duty of US$0.54 per gallon.
Brazil is the world's largest ethanol producer, responsible for 36 per cent of the world's total production in 2004, and Coinex, the country's largest producer.
World demand for ethanol is expected to reach 130 billion litres by 2020.
