These are the plans of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine that has adopted the state program “Bioethanol.” According to it, arranging the production of alternative fuel is a state priority.
The state-run enterprise of spirit and alcoholic beverage industry “Ukrspyrt” is ready to achieve the abovementioned output next year. In the near time 24 Ukrainian spirit plants are going to change their line of business. According to the Director General of “Ukrspyrt” Viktor Pankov, the only criterion for changing their business line is the source of raw materials. In particular, it concerns refineries producing molasses, the main raw material for bioethanol.
Meanwhile, sugar refineries may get the second wind and at least some prospects for the currently unprofitable branch by producing bioethanol. Sugar which is the main product is not very profitable since it is twice as cheap as bioethanol.
“A kilogram of sugar costs 5.15 hryvnias today, whereas a kilogram of bioethanol costs 10.5 hryvnias,” director of the Uzin Refinery Ihor Shpyliovy said. “If the price does not go up, we will cut beets into halves without using full plant capacity and will process the syrup into engine fuel component.”
This enterprise that recently partially resumed the production of sugar has just started producing bioethanol out of molasses. Previously it was only exported. The needed department was prepared during six months. Now it is able to process 70 tons of molasses per day and produce 30 tons of ecological fuel.
The enterprise is going to pass all its produce to the domestic petroleum refineries where bioethanol will be added into oil products to get the biofuel. The enterprise already has the corresponding agreements with the Novohrad-Volynsky petroleum refinery and the negotiations with the Kremenchuk refinery are in progress. The oblast authorities consider bioethanol production as a chance for sugar refineries to survive. “Selling raw materials is a crime. They have to be processed. We have to get the final product. Now we have an example when this raw material is processed and the ready product is made. In addition, the economic efficiency of the refinery has increased by 2.5 times,” the Kyiv oblast governor Anatolii Prysiazhniuk emphasized.
We remind our readers that the Verkhovna Rada has recently adopted the law on the state support of biofuel production and consumption in Ukraine. In particular, this law prohibits production of bioethanol at spirit plants producing ethyl alcohol.
