A new association has been formed with the intention of moving Saskatchewan’s ethanol needle from nearly empty to completely full.
The Saskatchewan Ethanol Development Council wants to help companies turn cereal crops into fuel by assisting them with their business plans, hooking them up with appropriate venture capital funds and encouraging local breeders to develop crops better suited to industrial uses.
“Our role is to be a knowledge broker for communities and independent businesses who want to get involved in every level of the ethanol industry,” said council president Lionel LaBelle.
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The association, a joint project of Saskatchewan Agrivision Corp. Inc. and the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, has ambitious plans for a province now producing 12 million litres of ethanol a year.
“It’s clearly not unreasonable to suggest we could have one billion litres of capacity five to 10 years from now. That’s absolutely doable,” said LaBelle.
NorAmera BioEnergy Corp.’s $20 million conversion of a defunct distillery in Weyburn, Sask., into a plant producing 25 million litres of ethanol should be complete by October.
Husky Oil Operations Ltd.’s 130-million-litre plant, to be built beside its heavy oil upgrader in Lloydminster, Sask., should be ready by the first quarter of 2006.
A few other small plants in the works will add another 60 million litres of capacity.
If all those projects pan out, and Iogen Corp. decides to build its 300-million-litre cellulose-based plant in Birch Hills, Sask., the province would be able to produce 750 million litres of ethanol within a few years.
But as it sits, Pound-Maker Agventures Ltd. is the only plant producing any volume of the alternative fuel in the province. And the Lanigan, Sask., firm has no intention of expanding its small capacity soon.
“Unless we have a national mandate or a national program where we can produce more ethanol in Saskatchewan to sell interprovincially, then there probably isn’t a lot of room for more,” said Pound-Maker president Brad Wildeman.
Saskatchewan has repeatedly delayed implementing legislation requiring fuel suppliers to sell blended fuels. The province is waiting for more capacity to come on line before mandating the use of ethanol.
Wildeman said the Lloydminster plant alone would be able to fulfil the demand generated by the provincial mandate so unless a national program creates demand from other provinces there’s no need to further develop the province’s ethanol sector. The plants are expensive to build and without a federal mandate or tax incentives the economics aren’t there for ethanol, said Wildeman, whose company has been producing the fuel for 14 years.
“Until these higher oil prices happened it hasn’t been an extremely profitable thing.”
LaBelle said creating an environment where there is free flow of ethanol across provincial borders will be one of the council’s primary objectives.
He acknowledged the province had a few false starts establishing an ethanol sector with the failed attempt to construct an 80-million-litre facility in Belle Plaine, Sask., and the related delays in implementing the provincial mandate.
But with construction under way on plants in Weyburn and Lloydminster, and nothing happening on new plants scheduled to be built in Ontario and Quebec, LaBelle is convinced the tide is turning, putting Saskatchewan at the forefront of Canada’s ethanol industry.
“We’re way ahead of every other province.”
