Ensus to restart biofuels facility

London – Ensus is to restart its bioethanol plant on Teesside in late August, the company has announced. The £300-million facility, which is Europe’s largest bio-refinery, has been mothballed for the last 15 months due to unfavourable market conditions for its products in Europe.

The decision to restart followed a move by the EU’s Customs Code Committee to close the loophole in the tariff system that allowed imports of subsidised US product to distort the market.

This, together with the ending of US taxpayer subsidies for ethanol, has been a major factor in the improvement of market conditions, said Ensus.

Around 100 plant employees have been kept on full pay throughout the shutdown. Ensus said it also supports over 2000 jobs in the wider supply chain.

General engineering and maintenance activities have been taking place for several weeks, said a company statement. It expected that the plant, on the Wilton International site, will be at full rates of operation within the next two months.

“Things are moving in the right direction once again and we are in a position to restart. It has been a very difficult time for everyone connected with the business,” said Ensus CEO Peter Sopp, who thanked, workers, customers and suppliers for their patience and understanding during the shutdown.

The Teesside bio-refinery is designed to convert more than 1 million tonnes of animal grade wheat into roughly equal amounts of fuel grade alcohol, high protein animal feed and carbon dioxide using a process of distillation and fermentation.

The ethanol is blended with petrol to create greener road fuel whilst UK and European farmers use the high protein wheat residue from the process as animal feed preventing the need for imports of high protein feeds from countries producing it in a less sustainable manner. Carbon dioxide from the process is used in the UK and European food and drinks industry.

Ensus began its operations in 2010. Its decision to invest at Wilton stimulated other significant investments by process industry companies in the area, most notably by Sembcorp, Vopak and Yara.

“It remains critical that the UK continues to support the use of high quality sustainable biofuels,” said Sopp. “The country urgently needs greener road fuels as part of its move towards a low carbon economy. Ensus is able to supply genuine environmentally sustainable ethanol to satisfy this need.”