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Written by Sabrina Deparine
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Monday, 27 April 2009 08:43 |
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Page views: 1513 |
Cosmo Oil Co., a Japanese-based oil company, will start the conversion of their existing facility at the Sakai refinery to make it capable of producing ethanol-based gasoline additive ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE) by 2011
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 This decision is based on the fact that the Japanese oil industry prefers ETBE, which is made from ethanol and isobutylene, over pure ethanol. This is because when ETBE additive is used for ethanol-gasoline production, it will no longer require oil refineries to modify its distribution network.
By far, Cosmo is the second refiner in the country to convert their existing methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE)-producing facility to ETBE. Nippon Oil was the first to have thought of the facility conversion. The company is currently undergoing work to convert the MTBE facility at the Negishi refinery to an ETBE facility. Nippon targets to start their trial operations by the end of this year.
Cosmo is the fourth largest refiner in Japan. It plans to begin the remodeling and construction of the ETBE plant within this year. The current MTBE plant has a capacity of producing 1,700 barrels per day. The new facility will make use of the residues from their paper-making processes as feedstock. Based on current data, the amount or volume of the paper-making residues from Cosmo and Nippon Paper Chemicals will be able to produce a maximum of 10,000 kiloliters or 63,000 barrels of ethanol per year.
Cosmo also has plans of getting ethanol feedstock from Japan Biofuels Supply LLP (JBSL), a joint venture formed by oil refiners which is also responsible for purchases of ETBE.
Japanese oil companies have started to sell gasoline blended with ETBE in limited markets in 2007. The country is planning to make ETBE gasoline available nationwide by 2010.
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