A Malaysian business is reported to be in talks to take control of UKFuelTech Ltd, a UK biodiesel equipment manufacturer.

 

The new shareholders would buy about 60 per cent of the firm, UKFuelTech managing director Mark Sear said.

He declined to reveal the identities of the buyers.

The company is currently 40 per cent owned by Sear himself. Its finance/administration director James Frost holds another 40 per cent and the rest is owned by Trevor Modell.

Malaysia is the company's biggest market in Asia.

Targeting biodiesel producers, Sear said, the company has already got 50 confirmed orders from eight clients here.

"The first machine to be installed in Malaysia will arrive by sea in a month's time," he said.

Sear flew in to Malaysia yesterday for a press conference to introduce his company's technology to biodiesel producers in Malaysia.

"We're offering flexibility in the form of modular set up. Each machine can process up to 10,000 tonnes per year. Therefore, if a client has a licence to produce 100,000 tonnes of methyl ester per year, we'll supply 10 machines," he explained.

According to Sear, the beauty of the selling price of his company's reactor is only a fifth of what is being offered in the market right now.

Sear differentiates his machines by its modular set-up.

"We don't build giant-sized biodiesel plants. We only do small biodiesel machines of 10,000 tonnes per year and stack them together for bigger capacity," he said.

Sear outlined a situation where if one of the machines in a modular set up breaks down, clients need not face downtime.

"They only need to take out the faulty unit to be repaired while the rest can continue with production," he said.

Editorial comment: UK FuelTech's factory is based in the Bedfordshire village of Cranfield.  It is a direct competitor to Holland's BioKing at the 'budget' end of the biodiesel equipment market (machines under euros 15,000), and both companies' budget models are virtually indistinguishable.

 

However, BioKing has recently been introducing 'automated' continuous-flow models at euros 329,000, while UKFuelTech's approach to larger installations is to string their low-end batch-processing models together in parallel. 

 

'Standard components-in-parallel' is not necessarily a worse approach, as the difficulty of biodiesel-making increases exponentially with plant size and complexity. 

 

The smallest plants, such as those made by UKFuelTech, are batch-processors, ie. a small batch of feedstock is titrated, mixed in a 'reactor' vessel with methoxide, then dried and settled. Then the process begins again with the next batch.

 

Larger plants, such as BioKing's 'BK-18ST-Container' are automated continuous-flow models in which raw material is drawn continuously from large holding tanks containing a road tanker delivery of 12 tons or more.

 

Inevitable variations in feedstock require that each delivery is 'titrated' before processing, and the methanol/NaOH mixture added according to the resulting calculation. This is easier in batch-processing than with continuous-flow.

 

It is easier because titration results are often different with samples taken at various levels in a single 12-ton tank, making it necessary to arrive at an averaged calculation with all the innacuracy that this implies. And the feedstock is always moving through the system, making constant monitoring necessary.

 

In contrast, small batch-proccessors make it possible to titrate to a high degree of accuracy. Errors in the ethanol/NaOH admixture are less likely if titration samples are taken from a small feedstock tank. And unlike continuous-flow models, the batch will sit in the reactor vessel for several hours, making it possible for the operator to 'tweak' for optimum results, and even to re-process the batch if necessary.  

 

A result is that continuous-flow operators prefer high-quality virgin feedstocks (such as palm oil, jatropha, soy etc.) where they can be reasonably sure of feedstock uniformity. Otherwise, if a continuous-flow plant uses used cooking oil as raw material, it will be necessary for a pre-processing plant to heat, filter, mix and homogenise the feedstock before it gets to the reactor stage.

 

A drawback of the 'standard components-in-parallel' model versus the 'custom big plant' is in the need for more workers, but this factor is less critical if the plant is located where labour costs are low, such as SE Asia, and the end product is shipped to markets where fuel prices are high, such as Europe. Hence the scramble to set up in Malaysia.

 

Although both UKFuelTech and BioKing sell into Malaysia, neither should be affected by the recent decision of the Malaysian government to stop issuing licenses to biodiesel manufacturers, as this decision only applies to plant investments of over USD $500,000, and in practice does not appear to apply to local producers.

 

See related articles:

BioKing introduces 7 million gal/yr portable biodiesel plant http://www.biofuelreview.com/content/view/116/2/
Malaysia calls 'temporary' halt to biodiesel licences

http://www.biofuelreview.com/content/view/196/

David Smith, Singapore