Biofuel buddies
Engineering company Prochem and MAN Ferrostaal, an industrial services division of the MAN Group, will design and construct a plant producing biofuel for oil company Lotos.
The installation in Czechowice will produce 100,000 tonnes of methyl ester annually. Production will be launched in February 2008.
Lotos' Czechowice will be the second biocomponents plant in Poland. The other is the Trzebinia Refinery belonging to PKN Orlen, which produces 100,000 tonnes of rapeseed oil methyl ester per year, but Orlen has decided to increase production to 150,000 tonnes.
The investment will cost Lotos zł.73 million, while the deal between Prochem and MAN Ferrostaal is worth zł.23 million. Prochem will provide engineering expertise and MAN Ferrostal will be the main contractor. "We will try to make other producers interested in our joint offer," says Marek Kiersznicki, Prochem's sales and marketing director.
Damian Garczorz, plant and equipment manager in MAN Ferrostaal Polska, says that the technology will use rapeseed oil, but the system will be different to the one in Orlen's Trzebinia. Garczorz adds that this technology will enable better quality control.
