A Portuguese consortium is preparing to build the country's largest biodiesel refinery, which should go into operation in 2010 and have a yearly capacity of 250,000 tons, a leading shareholder said. Pedro Sampaio Nunes told Reuters the plant will refine oils from crops such as sunflower, soy, rapeseed, jatropha and palm.
"We will start building in October this year, if everything goes well," Sampaio Nunes said. "The investment will be about 100 million euros ($156.9 million) and the refinery will start operating at the end of 2009 or early in 2010."
The consortium, known as GreenCyber, is 58 percent owned by construction firm Hagen, 30 percent by individual investors including Sampaio Nunes and 12 percent by Efisa bank. He said the consortium has received approval for its environmental impact and should receive its industrial license next month.
The refinery will be built in the southern port of Sines, from where biodiesel can be exported and giving it easy access to road and rail links to neighbouring Spain. The refinery will aim to take advantage of the government's goal of reducing the country's dependence on crude oil and to meet a target for diesel to contain 10 percent biodiesel by 2010, or 600,000 tons a year, up from 3 percent in 2007.
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