Colombia's new Bioenergia ethanol plant in eastern Meta province has reached production levels of 238,000 liters/day in a ramping up process that will lead to a maximum 500,000 l/d by early next year, according to a source at majority owner Ecopetrol.
Once at full capacity, the Bioenergia plant's 500,000 l/d will add 37% to the nation's previous 1.35 million l/d output capacity, according to the Biofuels Federation, a Bogota-based group of ethanol and biodiesel producers.
The gradual coming online of the Bioenergia plant in Puerto Lopez township has proceeded well enough to give the company confidence to sign supply deals with the Petrobras and Biomax service station chains, which each have locations across Colombia, parent Ecopetrol said Thursday.
The introduction of supply from Bioenergia is bringing equilibrium to a domestic ethanol market that was hit by production declines in 2016 and earlier this year caused by heavy rains in prime sugar-growing regions that made harvesting cane problematic. Colombia's ethanol feedstock is 100% sugar cane.
The problems caused nationwide ethanol production to decline by 10% over the first two months of the year, forcing the country to import as much as 30 million gallons from the US, according to the Biofuels Federation, which in Colombia is known by its Spanish name Fedebiocombustibles.
Because of the domestic production decline, the government had to temporarily suspend the law requiring that each gallon of gas contain a minimum 10% of ethanol. The 10% minimum ethanol content rule has been since reinstated.
The Bioenergia facility includes 20,000 hectares of company-owned sugar cane fields. Difficulties in growing cane crops with adequate yields in eastern Colombia's highly acidic soil in the Orinoco basin was one reason why the facility is two years behind schedule and expected to cost $700 million, more than twice the $300 million budgeted.
