December 25, 2006

 

China's Inner Mongolia plans 500,000 tonne/year ethanol plant

 

 

The government of Tongliao, a city in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, plans to set up an ethanol plant with a capacity to process 1.5 million tonnes of corn into 500,000 tonnes of ethanol annually, a local official said Friday (Dec 22).

 

"We have signed an agreement with Nengsheng Bio-tech Company to construct an ethanol facility with a total investment of RMB1 billion (US$128 million)," said the official, who only gave his surname Ar.

 

Nengsheng Bio-tech is a Sino-American joint venture company based in Tianjin city.

 

"The plant will also be able to produce 400,000 tonnes of feed a year as a by-product," Ar said.

 

Construction of facility will begin in Apr 2007, he added, without elaborating.

 

The Chinese government has suspended approval of ethanol projects that use corn as a feedstock, in a bid to secure the country's grain supplies, according to local media reports earlier this month.

 

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic planner, is tasked to review ethanol projects.

 

The official declined to say whether or not the planned ethanol plant has been approved by the NDRC.

 

China is the world's third-largest ethanol producer, after the US and Brazil.