Three Spanish firms say they plan $425 million in Philippine biofuel investments

Three Spanish firms have announced that they are planning investments in the Philippine biofuels industry.

Coromoto Comunicacion of Spain is considering the investment of $100 million in a jatropha biodiesel plant in southern Bukidnon. Abengoa Bionergy is investigating a $175 million project in Ozamis City. Green Fuel said it would invest up to $150 million in a biodiesel plant in Davao Oriental.

The announcements came in the wake of a state visit by Philippine President Arroyo to Spain.

Last week, Bionor Transformacion said it plans to invest $200 million in a 247,000-acre jatropha plantation in the Philippines.

Previously, PNOC Alternative Fuels Corporation chairman Renato S. Velasco said that he expected that at least 700,000 hectares of jatropha would be planted in the country, and that the bulk of cultivation would be in Mindanao. The Chairman stressed that jatropha would be grown only in currently unused land and that no food production land would be switched to fuel.

The Philippines have a B1 and E5 mandate scheduled to go into effect in 2009, rising to B2 and E10 in 2011. Philippine demand for biofuels is expected to rise to 187 million galls of ethanol and 54 gallons of biodiesel by 2011.

Eight Philippine companies have pledged more than $350 million towards biofuels production investment. The companies include: Bio-Energy NL, Inc.; E-Cane/Pampanga Industrial Park Corp.; Philippine Agricultural Land Development and Mill, Inc (PALM, Inc.); and Zambo Norte Bioenergy; Philippine National Oil Company-Alternative Fuels Corp., Guidance Management Corp., Fuel, Inc. and Eastern Petroleum.

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