Ioan Niculae, owner of InterAgro, has brought 38 Bulgarianengineers to the new bioethanol plant in Zimnicea (southernRomania), with the businessman specifying he did not find personnelqualified or interested in working in the town by the Danube. Thecompany inaugurated the first bioethanol refinery in south-easternEurope last week, an investment amounting to around 90 millioneuros.
"It is a specialised profession, which entails a lot of computerwork, and we unfortunately did not find qualified Romanians willingto work in Zimnicea. We received over 400 CVs, but most were fromover 50 year-olds, who have no idea how to use a computer, but alsofrom young people, fresh out of college, who don't even know thechemical formula of starch. We continue to recruit in Bucharest,Turnu Magurele and Alexandria," explained Aurel Ispas, shareholderof Bio Energy Fuel, the company that operates InterAgro'sbioethanol refinery.
In addition to bioethanol, InterAgro also produces corn oil,fodder, and carbon dioxide, used in the chemical and food industry,with almost 90% of production to be exported. Companyrepresentatives expect the investment to be recouped in three tosix years.
"Almost 90% of all that the InterAgro group produces is exported.We want to preserve the same percentage for the refinery. We arethe only European producers with a 99.9% ethanol purity, above theEU standards, which secures us a competitive advantage (...),"Ispas added.
According to Niculae, the refinery holds stockpiles of corn thatwill allow it to function in the next five months, with costsamounting to around 12 million euros. Corn currently costs around0.09 euros/kilo, while ethanol was quoted at 0.675 euros per litreon the stock exchange at the end of last week.
"We currently use 3.3 kilos of corn for the production of one litreof ethanol, of one kilo of fodder and of one litre of edible cornoil. We want to cut consumption to 3.1 or even 3 kilos," explainedIspas. It now costs around 300 euros to produce one tonne ofbioethanol, with the sale price amounting to 675 euros.
Niculae also wants the group's chemical plants to beenergy-independent by next summer, an investment set to amount to100 million euros, targeting the construction of five cogenerationfacilities that will have an overall capacity of around 110 MW,making it the largest private energy producer in Romania.
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