Biodiesel plant news from around the world

PHOTO: CHANNEL BIOREFINERY & TERMINALS LLC

May 1, 2013

BY Ron Kotrba

Lignol Energy Corp. has invested around $2.6 million to acquire approximately 356 million shares of Australian Renewable Fuels Ltd. (ARW). ARW is the largest biodiesel producer in Australia, owning three plants with a total nameplate capacity of around 40 MMgy. Its three plants were built at an aggregate cost of more than $103.9 million. Lignol’s latest investment was funded in part from major shareholder Difference Capital Funding Inc. Lignol now owns a total of 898 million shares of ARW, or 21.4 percent.


Environmental Development Group put its small biodiesel facility in Tucson, Ariz., up for sale. The plant, EDG Fuels, has potential to produce 3 MMgy in addition to tank farm storage capable of holding 60,000 gallons of feedstock and 30,000 gallons of biodiesel in an industrial area of the city. EDG Fuels opened in March 2010.


Portugal-based Incbio signed a contract with Biofuel Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Green Energy Group Ltd., to supply a 2.4 MMgy biodiesel plant for installation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The plant will employ Incbio’s ultrasonic reactors and solid catalyst acid esterification technology to produce biodiesel from brown grease. Completion is expected this summer.

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The California Energy Commission announced it is awarding Buster Biofuels $2.64 million from its alternative and renewable fuel and vehicle technology program to build a biodiesel plant in San Diego scaled at nearly 5 MMgy. The commission stated the funds would be used to convert a 7,300-square-foot industrial warehouse building into a biodiesel manufacturing and fueling facility. Buster Biofuels is a San Diego grease collector and biodiesel distributor.


United Refining Co., through its subsidiary United Biofuels Inc., has acquired a partially completed 50 MMgy biodiesel facility in Brooklyn, N.Y., as part of the acquisition by its parent company, United Refining Inc., of certain assets of Metro Fuel Oil Corp. and its affiliates. The multifeedstock facility is estimated to become operational within a year and will be one of the largest biodiesel facilities on the East Coast.


Channel Biorefinery & Terminals LLC purchased the longtime idled GreenHunter Biofuels biodiesel production facility on the Houston Ship Channel back in October and held a March groundbreaking ceremony to launch its “fast-start” project to get the plant running by July. The GreenHunter facility was hit by Hurricane Ike in September 2008 just months after opening and never restarted as the global financial crisis unfolded. Kenneth P. Brown, president and CEO of Channel Biorefinery & Terminals, tells Biodiesel Magazine there’s a short- and long-term plan. Getting the plant running up to 35 MMgy is the immediate plan, followed by significant investment to remove bottlenecks, becoming truly multifeedstock and boosting capacity to 75 MMgy.

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A supply agreement to send biodiesel to Shell Canada Ltd. by an interterminal pipeline from Biox Corp. will help Shell Canada achieve its renewable fuels target. Biox’s Hamilton, Ontario, biodiesel refinery with production capacity near 18 MMgy is located adjacent to the Shell distribution terminal, which allows for a pipeline to be installed connecting the two facilities. The connection is expected to be completed by late 2013.


Piedmont Biofuels of Pittsboro, N.C., has been certified under the internationally recognized Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels Program following a third-party assessment conducted by SCS Global Services. The assessment included an inspection of the biodiesel plant and several of the filling stations, and verification that Piedmont’s biodiesel reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent compared to conventional diesel.


BDI-BioEnergy International has been commissioned by a company in Southeast Europe to build a 30 MMgy multifeedstock biodiesel plant. The final contract for construction of the plant is expected in the coming months.


Extreme Biodiesel announced it has entered into discussions with Temecula, Calif.-based Promethean Biofuels, a community-scale biodiesel producer with production capacity between 2 and 3 MMgy, to negotiate Promethean Biofuels’ acquisition.

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