Further expansion of the Pannonia Ethanol biorefinery in Hungary

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News with regard to the bioethanol sector in Eastern Europe. Pannonia Ethanol, subsidiary of the European bioethanol group Ethanol Europe Renewables (EERL), announced on 23th November that it had successfully completed an M€ 135 credit facility agreement with a consortium of Hungarian banks (see press release). The facility will support the expansion plans for its biorefinery located in Dunaföldvár (Hungary). By the way, I will soon include it in the list of advanced biorefineries at commercial scale in Europe, I had overlooked it in spite of being one of the largest biorefineries in Europe.

This is not its first scaling-up of this plant that produces bioethanol, high quality animal feed (DDGS) and corn oil. Recently, an expansion lifted the production capacity of bioethanol from 280 million litres per year to 450 million. The feed production capacity was raised from 200,000 tons per year to 325,000. The facility also produces 10,000 tons of corn oil and utilizes more than 1,000,000 tons of corn annually.
Figure 1. Pannonia Ethanol biorefinery in Dunaföldvár (extracted from Pannonia Ethanol web page)

Almost all of the corn processed by Pannonia Ethanol comes from Hungarian family farms. The company’s business model ensures that renewable ethanol production is integrated with local agricultural communities. It plays an important part in realizing Hungary’s potential in agriculture and in creating and sustaining new jobs. Pannonia Ethanol adds nearly M€ 500 to Hungary’s GDP and supports 2,000 jobs (direct and indirect), mostly in rural areas.

Now, the investment will be devoted to new projects, cost reduction, additional jobs and increases in both corn buying and animal feed output. Mark Turley (CEO of EERL) said: “This investment further reduces costs and increases production capacity across the board. It also supports the introduction of innovative new bioproducts that promise significant benefits for human and animal health”.

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