Ethanol plant in Uruguay costing US$120 million to be built by Spanish Abengoa

The mill will have installed capacity of 70 million liters\year and will be constructed by state-owned Alur in the Uruguayan region of Paysandu, 380 kilometers from national capital Montevideo. Raw materials to be used include sorghum, corn, barley and wheat. Besides ethanol, nearly 50 thousand tons of the sub-product DDGS (used to make livestock feed) will be produced. They will also build a cogeneration plant for electrical energy, with installed capacity of 8MW to supply the nearby distillery.

This will be the first plant built by Abengoa for a third-party. The company has been developing projects in Uruguay since 1980. Construction should begin in January of next year and will take nearly two years to complete. The initial phase will be headed exclusively by the Spanish company. The two companies will form a partnership for the operation and maintenance of the factory. According to industrial director for Alur, Walter Bisio, commercialization of the final products and stocking raw materials will be controlled by state-run Alur, which will be the majority partner in the business.

According to Alur executive director Leonardo De León, Abengoa will be accountable for the installation of all the technology in the project and will receive a percentage from the operations of the industrial complex. Financial institutions will finance between 75% and 80% of the investment, while the rest will come from Alur and Abengoa.