January 18, 2007

China to halt ethanol projects
 

China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has lately issued an urgent mandate, to stop granting approval to corn-based processed ethanol projects.

The mandate requires putting on halt new biofuel ethanol projects in the name of processing corn and blind expansion of corn-based ethanol production capacity.

Four state-designated fuel ethanol enterprises, which were put into operation during the 10th five-year period (2001-2005), mainly process the stale grain. The firms include Jilin Fuel Ethanol, Henan Tianguan, Anhui Fengyuan Biochemical and Heilongjiang China Resources Jinyu.

The four also have been forbidden to expand their production capacity without approval by the state. They now would have to upgrade their production techniques and try to process more kinds of raw materials.

So far, the fuel ethanol production capacity of the four has totalled 1.02 million tonnes a year.