USDA approves loan guarantee for Chemtex’s ethanol facility

Chemtex International has received a loan guarantee of $99m from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the engineering and construction of an ethanol facility, Project Alpha, in the Sampson County, North Carolina.

The company is inclined to use the PROESA technology of Beta Renewables to produce ethanol from non-food energy feedstock.

The PROESA technology provides the flexibility of choosing a number of feedstock types to convert it into ethanol.

Chemtex president and Beta Renewables CEO Guido Ghisolfi said the company thanks USDA for the confidence in the project.

“Realizing a first industrial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant here in the USA and proving that it can produce cost competitive sustainable ethanol is an important milestone in the commercialization process of advanced biofuels,” Ghisolfi added.

“We believe that Project Alpha can become a model for future cellulosic ethanol production in America. Local economies and U.S. energy security will benefit.”

USDA is also supporting the Project Alpha by providing start up costs for planting new energy crops, in the form of a Biomass Crop Assistance Program Award.

Branch Banking & Trust will be the lender of record for the project.

Chemtex along with its partners, the Biofuels Center of North Carolina, Novozymes, BB&T, and the pork industry, will work closely with USDA and the State to move the project forward.

The company is expecting to start the project work in 2014.