The Eastern Cape is to be home to a new 90-million litre bioethanol production plant, with construction expected to start on the facility in the second quarter of next year.

Sibusiso Ngubane, the Central Energy Fund (CEF) biofuels project manager, said the project was a joint venture between State-owned financier, the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), CEF, and Sugar Beet South Africa.

The facility, which will cost in the region of R1.3bn and will be located in Cradock in the Eastern Cape, will produce bioethanol from sugar beet.

Warding off any criticism of using staple crops to produce bioethanol, Ngubane noted that sugar beet was a new crop that did not compete with South Africa’s traditional food production.

Separately, the IDC also said that it would not scale back its goal of approving at least R60-billion worth of new investments over the next five years, despite the current turmoil in global financial markets.

In an interview with Engineering News, Geoffrey Qhena, CEO of the IDC, added however that the corporation was likely to shift its focus from traditional export-orientated resources projects to more “industrial infrastructure” projects, in particular in the energy and renewable energy sectors.