Albion Sugar Estate produces ethanol in $100M project

May 03, 2014 News

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…Agri Ministry’s vehicles among first fleet to fuel up      

History was made yesterday in Guyana as the first fleet of vehicles belonging to the Ministry of Agriculture was fueled up by bio-friendly ethanol, at the launch of the Bio- Ethanol E-10 Fuel brand.
The ceremony was held on the lawns of the Albion Estate on the Corentyne.
Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, fueled up his vehicle at the end of the proceedings, attended by George Jervis, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture; Dwarka Sharma of Albion Estate; Albion Estate Manager, Mr. Dev Kumar, and other senior Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) staffers.

Bio-ethanol can be mixed with gasoline to create a blended fuel, offering the chance to significantly reduce Guyana’s reliance on imported fossil fuel.
With sugarcane, one of Guyana’s main commodities responsible for approximately 20 per cent of the annual revenue and 40 per cent of all agricultural production, Whitefox Technologies said that the move will be seen as a positive move to use this resource and the local agricultural expertise in growing sugar cane, to produce liquid fuel (in the form of bioethanol) and bioelectricity (through using the waste bagasse from the cane).
Whitefox Technologies, together with its partner, Green, secured a bio-ethanol contract with the Guyana Government a few years ago. The US$500,000 facility was commissioned last August by President Donald Ramotar, through technical cooperation between the Government of Guyana and through funding from the Inter- American Development Bank (IDB).
Subsequent to the commissioning last August, a fuel- blending and dispensing unit was installed to facilitate the mixing of gasoline with ethanol.
According to Mr. Sharma, who presented an overview of the project, installation was completed last February. It should be noted that the entire plant was fitted and installed by workers at Albion factory and all materials sourced in-house.
“Given the scale of the project, the blending unit was designated to operate on a batch basis to facilitate addition of a known volume of ethanol to a known volume of gas,” he added.
The present arrangement, he said, is capable of facilitating fuel blends with 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 25% ethanol. Although the capability exists for the plant to produce various blends, “the plant is focused on mixing gasoline with ethanol at 10% to produce E-10 blend, compatible with vehicles in Guyana.”
Trials of blending commenced in April and the first batch of E-10 was tested on a Toyota Corolla car from GuySuCo on April 8, 2014. No modification was done to this vehicle, Sharma said. “The fuel tank was emptied of the regular gasoline and refilled with E-10.” Since then, that same vehicle has been using E-10.
Minister Ramsammy stated that studies will be done to determine costs and efficiency. “That’s why they are starting out with a demonstration.”
Ramsammy stated, too, that there are other substances, such as cassava, that can be used in place of the sugarcane, “so when sugar is not in use or in season, we could continue to produce bio- fuel.”
The people of Albion, Berbice and Guyana, he said, “can look forward—when the first commercial bio- ethanol plant is in place in Guyana, a good candidate will be Albion…that means GuySuCo will have to work hard.”
He noted yesterday that it is the first time in Guyana that an initiative would go from demonstration to commercial. The Minister praised the company as being Guyana’s largest manufacturer and “single largest supporter of sports and recreation” in the country.
GuySuCo, he added, has no intention of giving up sugar and sugarcane. “These will remain a pillar on which GuySuCo, as a corporation, not only sustain its reputation, but continue to build on that reputation. We will continue to add products along the way and we will continue to change the way we do business.”
He said the corporation’s entire future will continue to produce sugar and add new products, e.g. bio- fuel. “There will come a time when we will support other industries…the aquaculture industry and therefore, thinking about tilapia, is not foreign to GuySuCo…but our sugarcane fields will not be converted into tilapia farms—Guyana has enough land to develop aquaculture.”
Guyana’s fuel import bill, he said, is an average of US$600M of fuel into Guyana, 38 per cent of which is used in the transport industry. “We import approximately 13,000 barrels of fuel daily into Guyana…we are starting with just about 20-25 vehicles by the end of this year, but I am setting a target for GuySuCo, and we hope that by 2020, the agriculture sector can support at least 100 vehicles in its use of an E-10 fuel blend in Guyana—it’s not overly ambitious
“If we could achieve that very modest target, it would have set the sector on the road, leading Guyana towards 100 per cent blended use in the transport industry.”
The country, he said, would have proven to itself that we could reduce and then eliminate the dependency on fossil fuels.

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