The China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO), the country's main fuel ethanol producer, plans to build a 300,000-ton-per-annum fuel ethanol plant in Hengshui, Hebei Province.

 

The project is under environmental appraisal and a public tribunal is scheduled for August to solicit local opinion, said the Hengshui Laobangan Liquor-Making Corporation, COFCO's partner in the project.  

 

The COFCO Biomass Energy Corporation, the project's operating company, will invest USD $15m in the plant, which will use sweet potato, corn and broomcorn as its main feedstock.  

 

The plant is expected to start supplying ethanol to Sinopec and CNPC, the top two state oil companies, once it is completed at the end of 2007.

 

China has become the world's third largest ethanol producer after Brazil and the US, said the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the state economic planner, in March.
 
Chinese domestic fuel ethanol production stands at 1.02m tons per annum.  

 

The NDRC says China can eventually generate as much as 10.2m tons of E10 ethanol gasoline, accounting for around 20% of the country's total gasoline consumption, each year.  

 

It plans to double its domestic ethanol gasoline production figure in the 11th five-year plan period (2006-2010), said the NDRC late last year.

 

David Smith, Singapore