The Hindu Business Line : Praj bags 2 contracts for fuel ethanol plants in Colombia

THE New Year celebrations seem to have started a little earlier for the Pune-based Praj Industries Ltd, solution providers for the distillery and brewery industry.

Talking to presspersons, Mr Pramod C. Chaudhari, Chairman and Managing Director, Praj Industries, said the company has finalised contracts for two green-field fuel ethanol plants in Colombia. It has also been awarded a contract for a large-sized ethanol plant based on molecular sieve dehydration technology for installation in Central America. The order worth for the three projects is $15 million, he said.

Mr Chaudhari said the company has signed the fuel ethanol contracts in the last week of December 2003 with Groupo Ardila Lulle, one of the larger sugar conglomerates in Colombia.

He noted that Colombia is the second South American country after Brazil to adopt fuel ethanol policy and in April 2003 had gazetted a law, which mandates use of 10 per cent ethanol to petrol. The sugar mills awarding the contracts — Incacua and Providencia — are based at Valle near Cali in the sugar belt and has a capacity of three lakh and 2.5 lakh litres per day respectively.

Mr Chaudhari said the third order is for a dehydration unit to be set up for an existing plant in Central America. The capacity of this plant is three lakh litres. The plant would dehydrate raw alcohol to anhydrous alcohol for exports to the US.

He said all the projects would be completed by March 2005.

Giving an idea on the global ethanol scenario, he said Brazil continued to maintain its first position with a production of 14 billion litres per year and a domestic consumption of 70 per cent. The remaining was exported to Europe and Japan. The second position was with the US, which produced 10 billion litres per year (as of 2003) and was estimating to touch 16 billion litres by 2012. Canada came next with ethanol-10 blends to achieve 35 per cent market penetration by 2010. He noted that in Japan, the drive for fuel ethanol was yet to take off and noted that it would continue to be a major importer.

As regards China, "there is no mandate as yet," he pointed out. He noted that a plant with a capacity of three million litres per day was being commissioned in Jilin in North China. The plant is being completed in a phased manner and is expected to begin commercial production in three years. The consumers for this fuel ethanol would be the Chinese market, he said.

Looking at the domestic front, Mr Chaudhari said Praj has been chosen as the preferred supplier for three contracts in Gujarat for setting up of fuel ethanol facilities. These green-field sugar factory attached plants would be based on continuous fermentation, multi-pressure distillation and molecular sieve dehydration technology.