Another power firm,
industrial port to rise
IN SAN CARLOS, ZABALETA SAYS
BY CARLA GOMEZ

More multi-billion peso investments are expected in San Carlos City with the scheduled construction of another 12 to 15 megawatt biomass power plant, a carbon dioxide recovery plant that will produce welding gas, and an industrial port, Jose Maria Zabaleta, San Carlos Bionergy Inc. chairman, said yesterday.

On Friday the P3 billion SCBI sugarcane-based ethanol and co-generation plant, the first in Southeast Asia, was inaugurated in the San Carlos Ecozone in Barangays Palampas and Punao, San Carlos City.

The plant, aside from producing nearly 40 billion liters of ethanol annually, generates 8 megawtts of renewable energy, 3.5 megawatts of which it sells to the Victorias-Manapla-Cadiz Rural Electric Cooperative, Zabaleta said.

The Department of Agriculture-Philippine Agricultural Development and Commercial Corp. is currently monitoring a total of 49 active biofuel projects by 40 companies, including the San Carlos Bioenergy Inc., in the country, PADCC president Marriz Agbon said.

Of these projects, 28 are biodiesel, 20 are bioethanol, and one is an integrated project involving the production of biodiesel and bioethanol, he said in his speech  at the SCBI inauguration in San Carlos City Friday.

Given all these, we can expect a total of some P40.8 billion worth of investments for the agricultural side, and some P42.5 billion for the plant side, Agbon added.

A pregnant woman being rushed to a hospital, her baby and her widowed mother were killed in a vehicular accident at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday in Bacolod City, reports from the City Police’s Traffic Management Unit showed yesterday.

The casualties were identified as Sharon Alison Arroyo, 27, of Crossing Otso, Brgy. Tangub, Bacolod City, and her mother Lilia Alison, 65, of Brgy. Miranda, Hinigaran town, Negros Occidental by traffic investigator Police Officer 3 Docelio Pachoro.

Investigation showed that the victims were on board a Hyundai Accent taxi (FWK 679) owned by AJM lines and driven by Mardel Stephen Yogore, 49, of Brgy. 13, Bacolod.