Ensus biofuel plant restarts production
30 Sep 2013
One of Europe’s largest bioethanol plants has restarted production after a hiatus of nearly six months.
The £300 million Ensus plant, located at the Wilton International process industries complex in Teeside, ceased production in April citing “adverse market conditions”, which were primarily low ethanol and high feedstock prices.
Market conditions have significantly improved
Ensus spokesman
However, Ensus was taken over by German firm CropEnergies in July and the firm now says it is ready to resume production.
“Essential maintenance work taking place since July is now complete and market conditions have significantly improved meaning the process of getting the plant up to full production can now begin,” said an Ensus spokesman.
CropEnergies acquired the Ensus plant in July from private equity funds managed by The Carlyle Group. The deal, worth €13.5 million, was made using shares rather than cash, with The Carlyle Group receiving 2.25 million in new CropEnergies shares.
Upon completing the acquisition, CropEnergies announced it intends to invest a further £50 million in Ensus to “significantly improve the competitiveness of the company”.
The Ensus plant is one of the largest production plants for bioethanol in Europe, with an annual capacity of 400,000 cubic metres of bioethanol and 350,000 tonnes of dried protein animal feed.
