Spain's Sniace mulls new Polish bioethanol plant
Perpignan, 17 September (Argus) — Spanish cellulose and energy company Sniace is close to financing a new bioethanol plant in Poland that has a seven-year off-take agreement with BP.
But plans to build a unit in its home province of Cantabria in northern Spain face deferral as the country's economic difficulties continue, it said.
Polish authorities have given the company approval to build a 200,000 t/yr bioethanol plant in the town of Kostrzyn nad Odra in western Poland, next to the border with Germany. “The project has successfully passed the due diligence process undertaken by a financial institution interested in participating in the project. This has meant the raising of bank finance is now in its final stages, with a deal close to closure,” Sniace said.
BP has confirmed that the off-take deal is in place.
Sniace is planning to use wheat, corn and barley as its feedstock at Kostrzyn, with the facility costing about €200mn ($262mn). The firm received a boost in April, when the Polish government offered a €37.5mn incentive to build the plant, as well as exemption from the first €25.4mn of corporation tax. But the project has been dogged by a series of slips in its timetable and is unlikely to meet its proposed start-up of the first half of 2014. Sniace chief executive Blas Mezquita said as recently as June that the company could break ground at Kostrzyn as soon as September, but this date is now unlikely to be met. The company's previously stated aim was to begin the two-year construction in the first half of 2012.
The second planned bioethanol unit, in Spain, appears to have been shelved. The proposed 100,000 t/yr facility near the town of Torrelavega was due to take 330,000 t/yr of wheat as its feedstock and has been in various planning stages with the Cantabrian authorities since 2007.
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