As Poslovni Dnevnik/Vecernji list writes on the 22nd of January, 2020, the Belgian company De Smet Engineers & Contractors (DSEC) has announced that they have begun work on a basic engineering contract for INA, which covers part of a project to build a second-generation bioethanol plant in the continental Croatian city of Sisak.
That being said, a statement claims that "DSEC will also integrate the selected process package into the project study and evaluate the associated capital and operating costs."
When completed, the project will enable INA to validate the planned construction of the Sisak plant, which INA promised as part of the compensation measures following the announcement of the closure of the basic refinery at the Sisak refinery. DSEC also noted something similar in their announcement, pointing out that the project aims to "establish sustainable industrial activity as an alternative to the Sisak oil refinery".
The value of the contract and work is not yet known and hasn't been publicly stated, but it is part of the activities kickstarted back in 2017 by INA in connection with the planned production of bioethanol in Sisak.
The plan is for the biorefinery to have an annual capacity of 55,000 tonnes of second-generation (2G) bioethanol, and will use locally grown miscanthus and lignocellulosic biomass, such as cereals and oilseeds, for the raw material.
According to the Environmental Impact Study of the Future Bioethanol Plant of 2017, the production of electricity for use from renewable sources (residues of biomass from production and, if necessary, wood chips) and the production of carbon dioxide produced in bioethanol production, are considered to be an increase in oil recovery.
For the planned production capacity, the annual quantity of raw material needed is estimated at 370,000 tonnes in total, which INA intends to secure by collecting agricultural residue directly from the fields and growing energy plants 75 kilometres in diameter around the city of Sisak.
Several months ago, INA completed miscanthus testing for biofuel production, saying that the test results were optimistic because they showed that sunliquid technology could successfully process miscanthus into lignocellulosic sugar and ethanol.
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