REGINA – Before even opening, a Weyburn ethanol plant has announced it is expanding.
“The demand is there, so we thought we might as well go for it,” said Rod Alain, president of the company that will operate the Saskatchewan facility.
Bellringer Resources of Calgary bought an old whisky plant and planned to convert it to make ethanol with an estimated capacity of eight to 10 million litres a year.
But a few months into the conversion Alain said the company is adding more fermenters, dryers and other machinery and going to 24-hour production so it can produce 20 million litres of ethanol annually.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
While much of the ethanol will go to the automotive market, Alain said the plant will also be able to produce higher grade alcohols for pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.
The protein from the two million bushels of wheat the facility will consume will be turned into dietary fibre, Alain said. He doesn’t foresee problems getting that volume of grain and said the company expects to pay the world price for wheat.
But it may be able to take advantage of wheat that is damaged or below acceptable quality for normal use.
“It doesn’t matter (to us) if it’s frozen wheat. We’ll get better buys on product that’s not yielding, not up to world standards.”
Alain said the Weyburn plant should be in production by October. It will employ about 60 people and will cost about $9 million.
