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INTERVIEW-Poland's Brasco to produce biodiesel, IPO delayedBy Agnieszka Flak WARSAW, July 26 (Reuters) — Poland's second largest biofuels firm, Brasco-Akwawit, will launch a new 150,000-tonne biodiesel plant by October, even though local competitors halted production, its chief executive said on Thursday. Other Polish biofuels companies have stopped production because delays in government subsidies and cuts in tax incentives made production difficult to sustain. But Brasco Chief Executive Wieslaw Kaczmarek told Reuters his company's size should give it an advantage over smaller competitors until conditions on the Polish biofuels market improve. «The plant is built, we've initiated production processes and production will start in the Fall,» he told Reuters. «This is a year of survival; 2008 will be a test whether it's in fashion and profitable to drive on biofuels—I expect next year will see the real market boom.» Brasco-Akwawit, owned by Polish energy tycoon Aleksander Gudzowaty, trails only oil group PKN Orlen's in biofuel production. PKN's Trzebinia refinery has an annual production capacity of 100,000 tonnes of biodiesel. Brasco-Akwawit had previously wanted to debut on the Warsaw bourse even this year, but delayed the plans due to high prices of raw materials and restructuring costs following the merger of biofuels producer Brasco with fermentation firm Akwawit. «We are restructuring the group starting from its fundamentals—if we realise that they are OK…if we manage to earn the profit we had estimated, then we should appear on the Warsaw stock exchange by the end of 2008,» Kaczmarek said. PROBLEMS WITH PROMOTION Poland, the biggest new EU member in eastern Europe, wants to encourage investment in biofuels to decrease energy dependance on Russia, counter rising oil prices and limit carbon emissions. It also wants to boost farm incomes. The National Biofuels Chamber has forecast Poland's annual biodiesel production capacity could surge to some 800,000 tonnes in 2008 from the current 280,000 tonnes and rise by 500,000 tonnes each year after that. Earlier this week the government adopted a programme giving subsidies for farmers to make biofuels more profitable, counterbalancing a cut in tax relief for producers that was made under EU pressure in January. But Kaczmarek, a former treasury minister in left-centre cabinets, said the current government has done little so far to promote biofuels. «On the one hand, the prime minister, the president, the economy minister speak a lot about energy security in Poland, but in reality biofuels are not treated as an element of their diversification of resources,» Kaczmarek said, adding biofuels made up only 10 percent of the government's energy plan. Brasco-Akwawit, whose new plant was built in the Western city of Wroclaw, said it would first focus on fleet buyers and then turn to individual consumers. Kaczmarek also said he planned to build a new plant to produce up to 80 million litres of bioethanol per year to replace an old facility which produces about 75 million litres. The company plans to spend 0.5 billion zlotys on investments up to 2010, dedicated for final touches on the new bioester plant, building of an oil processing plant and modernisation of its ethanol production.
HOLD-POLAND-BRASCO/ (INTERVIEW)|LANGEN|ABN|C|GRO|O|OIL|E|RBN|MTL|SOF
Date: 27.07.2007 Comments:Leave your comment
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What a joy to find someone else who thnkis this way.
What a joy to find someone else who thnkis this way., 20.07.2011 13:55:35
, 11.03.2010 09:06:29