Publicly listed Alsons Consolidated Resources announced that they are dropping their cassava based bioethanol project in Cagayan De Oro after a board vote last Friday. The reason given to the Philippine Stock Exchange was because of ambiguities in the Biofuels Act as well as delays in the release of the Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) from the Dept of Environment.
Also mentioned was the stiff opposition to the project given by the Catholic Church and NGO’s because of its proximity to the city’s watershed area.
The group mentioned also that they will concentrate in rushing the building of a 200 MW coal fired power plant in Maasim, Sarangani province to help alleviate the power shortage in Mindanao. They hope to have the plant in operation by 2012 or 2013. That is of course, unless they run into the same brick wall again known as the “ECC permitting process ” that they ran into and caused them to shelve their bioethanol project. Then of course there is again the Catholic Church who once again announced its opposition to the Coal Fired Power plant project in Maasim.
[source]
Category: Bioethanol



