A consortium of investors including, Seaoil Philippines Inc., Absolut Distillery and a car company is evaluating a proposal of Alfa Laval India Ltd. for a 100,000-liter per day sweet sorghum ethanol plant with an aim to begin ethanol production in 2009.

Forming a new company called Fuel Inc., Ford, Seaoil, and Absolut have become seriously interested in putting up a sweet sorghum ethanol plant as it sought proposals also from two other contractors aside from Alfa Laval. These are from the Praj Industries Ltd. for a 60,000-liter per day plant and from KBK-Chem Engineering Pvt Ltd for a 125,000 liters per day final turnkey project.

"Fuel Inc. is now among the serious investors in sweet sorghum ethanol. Its people will go to India (next month to look into existing facilities there)," said Dr. Heraldo L. Layaoen, vice president for administration, planning, and external linkages of Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) in a sweet sorghum village distillery tour in Batac, Ilocos Norte.

Investment in the plant may range from P450 to P1.5 billion depending on the capacity, but MMSU recommends the 100,000-liter capacity for economies of scale.

Sitting on a 300-hectare land, MMSU is the lead agency engaged in experimentation of sweet sorghum varieties given by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) to a research group (including Bureau of Agricultural Research) in 2004.

Layaoen said another potential investor in sweet sorghum ethanol is the group of Dr. Ramon Valmayor who runs more than five sugarcane mills in Negros Occidental and who is now conducting sweet sorghum field trials in Negros.

He said more sugarcane businesses have started looking into sweet sorghum as a complementary crop to sugarcane since sweet sorghum can be fed on a sugarcane ethanol plant during sugarcane lean seasons. These companies are Sweet Crystal in Pampanga and Gokongwei’s Cagayan Sugar Co. (Casumco). Since sweet sorghum can be a feedstock for production of alcohol, Ginebra San Miguel has also started trial planting of the crop as it has a 300,000 liter per day distillery in Bago, Negros Occidental.

Trade Relations Ambassador Benedicto Yujuico has also started field trials in South and North Cotabato and in three separate sites in Zambales.

Investors are apparently accelerating plans to put up an ethanol plant in time for the two-year lead time given by the Biofuels Act for the industry to adopt a five percent ethanol blend on gasoline since the law was signed in January this year.