The Prairies’ burgeoning ethanol industry is about to take a big step forward.
The Husky Energy ethanol plant at Lloydminster, Sask., has been conducting test runs since mid-August and is expected to go into full commercial production in the next month or two.
“We’ve been doing test batches of ethanol, calibrating our equipment, fine-tuning the processes and things like that,” said Husky spokesperson Dennis Floate.
“This is a major investment and it takes some time to work everything through and make sure everything works the way we want it before we go into commercial production.”
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That will happen before the end of year, he said, but he couldn’t be more specific about the timetable.
Floate added the test runs have gone as well as expected.
“Part of a start-up process is you do identify problems, so I can’t say it’s been trouble-free, but I would describe it as just the normal type of issues and problems you need to look at.”
The Lloydminster plant will buy about 350,000 tonnes of grain a year from area farmers, mainly feed wheat, and process it into 130 million litres of ethanol.
The company has reached an agreement with Agricore United to be the main grain buying agent for the facility, although it will advertise for grain as required.
Husky is building a similar capacity plant in Minnedosa, Man., where it already operates a small 10 million litre capacity facility. That new plant is slated to open for business in mid-2007.
NorAmer Bio Energy began producing ethanol in Weyburn, Sask., in December 2005. It plans to produce 25 million litres per year from 67,000 tonnes of feed wheat.
