Sugar Industry News

Redfield ethanol plant to convert to butanol plant

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 05:35:00 +0000

A South Dakota corn ethanol plant will soon begin producing a fuel additive with a wider variety of uses.

Tom Hitchcock, chief executive of Redfield Energy, said the 50 million gallon-per-year plant is teaming with Englewood, Colo.-based Gevo to convert the facility in Redfield to a 40 million gallon-per-year butanol plant using the same 18 million bushels of corn a year.

Hitchcock said each gallon of butanol contains more energy than a gallon of ethanol.
Read more »

Guyana denies inking secret ethanol deal with Ansa Mc Al

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 05:34:00 +0000

The Guyana government on Saturday denied inking a secret deal for the Trinidad and Tobago-headquartered Ansa McAl Group to build an ethanol project on 110,000 hectares of virgin land.

Word of the project only came to light last week when the Trinidad Guardian reported that the agreement was signed last September to process up to 2,000,000 tons sugarcane per year produce 40 million gallons of ethanol annually.
Read more »

Sugarcane farmers benefit through SIS system in Uttar Pradesh

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 05:33:00 +0000

LUCKNOW: For sugar cane farmers in Uttar Pradesh a novel e-governance project has come as a boon for dealing with delayed payments, under weighing of their produce, problems in selling cane and a host of other related issues.

In a state starved of any innovative governmental initiatives, the Sugar Information Service, started by the Uttar Pradesh government has earned accolades and is now the largest rural information technology platform in the country receiving 8 lakh hits for IVRS generated updates to farmers in the last 90 days and updating 2.5 crore webpages.
Read more »

Government to hike coconut sugar exports

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 05:32:00 +0000

The Philippines intends to be aggressive in exporting coconut sap (coco) sugar as it bids to get a major share in the $1-billion dollar alternative sweetener market, according to Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala.

“In tandem with the private sector, we are crafting a master plan to promote coconut sap sugar overseas and win a big share of the $1.1-billion global alternative sweetener market,” Alcala said.
Read more »

Cost & energy audits now mandatory for Maharashtra sugar co-operatives

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 05:20:00 +0000

PUNE: The Maharashtra government has made it mandatory for the co-operative sugar industry to perform cost and energy audits. This, if implemented seriously, is expected to save crores of rupees of the co-operatives.

Maharashtra is the country's top sugar producer, having a turnover of about Rs 25,000 crore. The industry is concentrated in the co-operative sector which is controlled by political leaders.

High level of inefficiency is one of its features and the industry often gets financial support from the state and Nabard.

"We decided to make it mandatory for the sugar mills to do the cost audit because it is mandatory for the private sugar mills," Sugar Commissioner Vijay Singhal said.

source: ET

Sugar pooling arrangement in trouble

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:59:00 +0000

PAN CARIBBEAN Sugar Company (PCSC) Limited is now at odds with the Sugar Industry Authority (SIA) over the pooling arrangement for a three-year supply deal between British sugar refiner Tate and Lyle and Jamaica Cane Product Sales (JCPS).

PCSC, the operators of Frome and Monymusk sugar factories, has refused to be part of the current pooling system beyond the 2011-2012 crop year, and has reportedly resigned from the Sugar Manufacturers' Corporation of Jamaica Limited.
Read more »

New Enzyme Could Make Cellulosic Ethanol Competitive With Fossil Fuels

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:58:00 +0000

Efforts to create a market for cellulosic ethanol in the U.S. veered into the realm of the absurd last month when companies faced fines of $6.8 million for failing to meet a 2011 federal quota to blend 6.6 million gallons of the renewable fuel into oil and diesel supplies.
Read more »

How ethanol is saving fuel for NASCAR

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:57:00 +0000

Along with ethanol fuel in the cars, NASCAR has other green programs like recycling car batteries and oil.

When the 43 NASCAR drivers start their engines for Feb. 26's Daytona 500, they will be doing so for the second year with American ethanol-blended fuel in their gas tanks.

The Sunoco Green E15 racing fuel, a renewable fuel blended with 15 percent American-made ethanol from American-grown corn, emits 20 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than unleaded gasoline and saved drivers from using a combined 300,000 regular gallons of gasoline during last year's NASCAR season.
Read more »

Every act of incompetence in the sugar industry should be investigated

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:54:00 +0000

Dear Editor,

The sugar industry continues to produce less sugar and at present we have the lowest sugar production for the past eighteen years. Production stood at two hundred thousand tonnes.

The forecast for this crop is not bright. The industry therefore must be able to produce an alternative arrangement in order to move the industry forward so as to yield a bountiful production in the vicinity of three hundred thousand tonnes for the year 2012. Low production at this point in time will aggravate and increase poverty in the sugar belt.
Read more »

Campbell Newman pledges $4.6m for sugar industry research

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:51:00 +0000

CAMPBELL Newman has pledged $4.6 million for research and development in Queensland's sugar industry, as part of his plan to double agricultural production within a generation.

But the Liberal National leader, who attacked federal Labor over its ongoing "knife fight", continued to dodge questions about who would lead his party should he fail to secure the Labor-held seat of Brisbane.
Read more »

Mixed reactions to EPA's E15 health effects approval

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:19:00 +0000

The ethanol industry checked off another item on its laborious list of requirements to introduce E15 to the market on Feb. 17 with the U.S. EPA’s approval of health effects and emissions testing on E15. The agency issued its approval after reviewing emissions testing performed by the Southwest Research Institute and an analysis submitted by industry groups Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association that showed previously approved health effects testing results for E10 are comparable to E15.
Read more »

Magellan expanding ethanol infrastructure in Texas

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:18:00 +0000

In Texas, Magellan Midstream Partners announced it is adding ethanol storage and distribution services at its Mt. Pleasant facility. The $2 million project, to be operational in early March, includes the conversion of a 17,000 barrel tank and a new sequential blending system, the company announced. The terminal will receive ethanol via truck.

According to Magellan spokesman Bruce Heine, the company began construction on the terminal in the fourth quarter of 2011. The company now offers ethanol storage and blending services at 71 of its terminals throughout 22 states.

Losing Ground to Oil, Brazilian Ethanol Struggles to Compete

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:17:00 +0000

It’s a bittersweet moment for Brazil’s energy industry. With a steady stream of petroleum discoveries promising to make Brazil one of the world’s largest oil producers, the country is turning more to oil and gas as biofuels begin to languish. Brazil, one of the world’s ethanol-producing pioneers, began making the sugar-based fuel during the energy crisis of the 1970s as a cheaper alternative to gas.
Read more »

Brussels is slowly beeting the life out of our sugar industry

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:16:00 +0000

It is one thing to show solidarity with the Scots by eating porridge for breakfast. But can you really face it on its own? Surely the thing is to add brown sugar or — better still — whorls of golden syrup. If you are like me, you take a childish pleasure in watching as it falls from the spoon, a glistening shaft of solid tawny sunlight.
Read more »

India topped Thailand in rice exports last year

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:14:00 +0000

NEW DELHI: India and Thailand are caught in a race for the top slot in farm exports from southeast Asia. India has pipped Thailand to become the top rice exporter but the latter has won the day in sugar exports.
Read more »

Higher Ethanol Blend Clears Major Hurdle to Market

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 15:00:00 +0000

LAKE ODESSA, Mich. — The U.S. ethanol industry came one step closer today to seeing low-cost, renewable E15 sold into the American fuels marketplace with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s evaluation of the health effects of E15, as part of Growth Energy’s three-year-old petition to approve sale of the mid-level ethanol blend.
Read more »

Minnesota loses cellulosic ethanol venture

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:59:00 +0000

A biofuels company opts for plants elsewhere after being helped by nearly $1 million in grant funding from Minnesota.

A biofuels company that benefited from nearly $1 million in grants from Minnesota taxpayers says it's ready to build two plants to turn wood chips into ethanol -- in Michigan and Alberta.

Just nine months ago, Mascoma Corp. told Minnesota officials that it could build "one of the first commercially viable cellulosic ethanol plants in the world" in Little Falls, Minn., with a project schedule that listed construction starting this May.
Read more »

Billion gallons U.S. ethanol exported, Brazil top destination

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:58:00 +0000

A total of 1.19 billion gallons of U.S. ethanol was shipped out in 2011, with one-third going to Brazil, this year’s No. 1 importer of U.S. ethanol. “The official numbers are in and they confirm what the industry has known all year: 2011 was a huge year for ethanol exports,” said Geoff Cooper, vice president of research and analysis for RFA.
Read more »

Australian Sugar Milling Foreign Ownership Isn't Against National Interest-Official

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:56:00 +0000

The move to majority foreign ownership of the Australian sugar milling industry isn't contrary to the national interest, a senior official of the Department of Agriculture said Friday, just as Thailand's Mitr Phol Sugar Corp. nears completion of its takeover of MSF Sugar Ltd.
Read more »

Not So Sweet: The Intricacies of Big and Little Sugar

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:53:00 +0000

The lede on a story by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) attacking import limits and other government protections for the U.S. sugar industry was an attention-grabber: "That Valentine’s Day hand on your back pocket billfold is not your sweetheart’s, it’s the sugar lobby’s."
Read more »

Arcadia Biosciences and United States Sugar Corporation Enter Into Agreement

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:29:00 +0000

Arcadia Biosciences and United States Sugar Corporation Enter Into Agreement to Develop Nitrogen Use Efficient and Water Efficient Sugar Cane

Arcadia Biosciences, Inc., an agricultural technology company focused on developing technologies and products that benefit the environment and human health, and the U.S. Sugar Corporation, one of the nation’s largest fully integrated producers of sugarcane and refined cane sugar accounting for approximately 8 percent of all U.S. sugar production, today announced that they have signed an agreement to develop Nitrogen Use Efficient (NUE) and Water Efficient (WE) sugarcane. Under the terms of the agreement, U.S. Sugar receives exclusive rights to the use of Arcadia’s NUE and WE technologies in sugar and energy cane in the U.S.
Read more »

Wisconsin Ethanol Industry Sets New Export Record

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:28:00 +0000

Throughout the week, many farm media outlets have been talking about Wisconsin's new agricultural exports record--which hit $285 billion in goods during the past year. And among the commodities that made figure possible was Wisconsin-produced ethanol.
Read more »

Zimbabwe: Get Country to Switch to Ethanol-Petrol Blend Fuel

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:26:00 +0000

Most of the larger fuel companies have started selling the petrol-ethanol blend known as E10, a reference to the percentage of ethanol, amid hopes that Zimbabwe would soon be able to substitute 10 percent of its petrol imports with a home-grown fuel.

There is even a serious marketing campaign for the fuel, centred on its lower environmental impact.
Read more »

Oil Hits a New High on Iran Actions as Critics Seek to Block Ethanol

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:25:00 +0000

With news that Iran’s reduction of oil shipments to Europe will force American motorists to pay more for gasoline, as oil hits a new six-month high, the American ethanol industry reacted by pointing out that higher blends of ethanol in motor fuel would reduce prices at the pump and reduce OPEC’s influence over our nation’s economy. “American motorists are looking down the barrel of $5 a gallon gasoline this summer, all while foreign strongmen and dictators threaten to drive prices up even more by shutting down oil supplies.
Read more »

Don't put sugar on positive list, PSMA urges government

noreply@blogger.com (Kamal) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:24:00 +0000

Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) has urged the Commerce Ministry to exclude sugar from positive list while granting Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India.

On Tuesday Federal Cabinet quashed negative list prepared by the Commerce Ministry, as Ministry of Textile Industry, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Establishment and some industry stakeholders opposed Commerce Ministry in taking such a decision in haste.
Read more »