A contract worth $60 million to design and provide equipment for a bio-ethanol factory in the Dung Quat Economic Zone was signed on August 28.

The major input material for producing bio-ethanol will be cassava.

Under this contract, the PetroVietnam Technical Service JS Corporation (PTSC) is the contractor and will supply technology copyright, designs, purchase equipment, build and experimentally run the Dung Quat bio-ethanol plant before transferring the plant to the investor, the Central Region Oil and Gas Bio-fuel JS Company (PCB).

As the contractor, PTSC will cooperate with Alfa Laval from India and the sub-contractor from the US, Delta-T, to implement this project.

The construction of the Dung Quat bio-ethanol plant was kicked off in late April 2009 in Quang Ngai province. This is one of the key projects invested in by the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) in the Dung Quat Economic Zone.

The plant is being built on 24 hectares of land, with designed capacity of 100 million litres of alcohol per year, satisfying 25 percent of Vietnam’s need for material to produce E-5 bio-fuel.

This plant will also supply other products like industrial alcohol and materials for producing animal feed.

The total investment capital in this project is nearly 1.5 trillion dong. The major input material for this plant will be cassava (around 240,000 tonnes a year). The plant will start operating in early 2011.

PV