Alberta’s lone biodiesel plant should have plenty of company starting in 2010, say industry proponents.
Western Biodiesel Inc. opened its 19 million litre plant in July 2008. The High River, Alta., facility is now shipping 12 to 14 rail cars of biodiesel per month to customers in the United States and Europe.
The primary feedstock for the plant is rendered animal fat but it also uses canola oil.
Western Biodiesel is the only functioning biodiesel plant on an Alberta landscape that was supposed to be dotted with numerous plants by now.
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Company president Dean Cockshutt said the delay in industry development is due to a number of factors but none more important than problems with one of the main federal incentive programs.
“It has been the uncertainties in the EcoEnergy (for Biofuels) program that have prevented proponents from building,” he said.
A delay in implementing Alberta’s two percent biodiesel mandate hasn’t helped matters. The province announced in March that its renewable fuel standard would start on April 1, 2011, instead of the original 2010 target.
Barb Isman, chief operating officer for Canadian BioEnergy Corporation, a Vancouver company that plans to build a 265 million litre plant in Lloydminster, Alta., in partnership with Archer Daniels Midland, said projects have also been hampered by the global economic meltdown that began in the summer of 2008.
“Capital essentially dried up,” she said.
But Isman agreed that problems with the federal incentive programs were a leading cause of investor trepidation. EcoEnergy program details weren’t finalized until Dec. 14, 2009.
“There were good reasons why people kind of hit the pause button,” she said.
Those uncertainties are about to be removed. The federal government will be announcing at the end of May which biofuel companies will be receiving the sought after production incentives.
The EcoEnergy program has received 68 applications for about $2 billion worth of assistance. Unfortunately there is $473 million remaining in the program’s $1.5 billion budget, so there will be some disappointed applicants.
Western Biodiesel is one of many firms hoping it will make the cut of approved projects. The company is planning a 115 million litre expansion to its High River plant.
Alberta’s other biodiesel projects
- Kyoto Fuels Corp. is poised to be the second operating biodiesel plant in the province. Much of the construction on the 66 million litre tallow and waste grease biodiesel plant in Lethbridge is complete.
“We’re expecting to be in production in the next couple of months,” said company president Kelsey Prenevost.
- Canadian BioEnergy Corporation is awaiting word on provincial and federal incentives.
“We should be able to make a definitive statement in early summer,” said Isman.
Construction is expected to begin this summer.
- BFuel Canada Corp. is another company waiting to hear from EcoEnergy. The firm plans to build a 50 million litre canola biodiesel plant east of Lethbridge.
“We expect construction to start in June,” said project administrator Ron Knoedler.
The $43 million project will eventually include construction of a canola crushing facility that will require production from 150,000 acres of the oilseed crop.
- Alberta Ethanol and Biodiesel Group has scaled back its plans to build a $400 million biorefinery in Innisfail. The original concept was a 379 million litre ethanol plant, a 379 million litre biodiesel plant and a canola crushing facility.
Project developer Curtis Chandler said the new plan is to build a 160 million litre wheat ethanol plant. The biodiesel plant and crush facility are no longer part of the project unless governments bolster their biofuel mandates and incentive programs.
The company is awaiting word from the federal EcoEnergy program on its application.
“We’ve got about $3 million invested in this project, so it’s not like we don’t have money on the line. So we’re hoping it happens,” said Chandler.
- CR Fuels Inc. is also scaling back its bio-village project planned for Strathmore.
The original $270 million project called for a 95 million litre ethanol plant, a 114 million litre biodiesel facility and a canola crushing plant.
“We have put the biodiesel project on hold,” said Wayne Rousch, executive vice-president of CR Fuels.
Problems with the cold flow properties of biodiesel and the size of the government mandates forced the company to put the brakes on the biodiesel and canola crushing portions of the project.
The new plan is to build a 151 million litre wheat ethanol plant.
The company has applied for funding from the federal ecoAgriculture Biofuels Capital Initiative program but not from the Eco-Energy program.
“Maybe that is one that we missed,” said Rousch.
- Summus Capital Corp. recently signed an agreement to acquire ReNvision Biofuels Ltd., a company building a 41 million litre multi-feedstock biodiesel plant.
The company has not divulged the exact location of the plant but said it will be somewhere south of Calgary.
Construction is expected to begin in 2010, once financing is in place. The firm is awaiting word on its EcoEnergy application.
- SBI Fine Chemicals Inc. is building a 10 million litre biodiesel demonstration plant in conjunction with Olds College and a 500,000 litre plant with the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.
The plants will be used to demonstrate the company’s proprietary catalyst technology, which produces biodiesel without the use of water or chemicals.
- Fame Biorefinery Corp. operates a one million litre pilot plant near Airdrie, Alta., and plans to build 10 to 12 six to 10 million litre plants across Western Canada.
The plants will produce their own electricity and heat and will use a broad range of oilseeds as a feedstock.
- BioStreet, a company that plans to build a $225 million litre biodiesel plant and 500,000 tonne canola crushing facility in Vegreville, Alta., was contacted for this story but did not return calls.
- Western BioFuels Ltd. was also contacted for this story but did not return calls. The company plans to build a canola crushing facility and a 190 million litre biodiesel plant near Lavoy, Alta., according to the firm’s website.
