South Korean investors are syndicating a $35-million investment for a sweet sorghum ethanol and cogeneration plant in Pangasinan even as its Philippine partners are consolidating resources for a 500-hectare plantation.

Eco Frontier, a South Korean company, is readying investment for the plant which will have a power generation capacity from bagasse of five to eight megawatts (MW) and an ethanol capacity of 40,000 to 100,000 liters.

And since Eco Frontier requires that a sweet sorghum ethanol plantation should first be put up before it will invest in the project, the First Philippine Biofuel Resources Co. (FPBR), owned by former Congressman Eric Acuna, is now working on sweet sorghum production.

“The challenge to us is to put up the plantation first because many investors want to put in their money if the plantation is already there. We now have 7,800 hectares of land ready for this,” said FPBR Director Bernardo Tadeo in a First National Review of Sweet Sorghum.

No commercial-stage sweet sorghum ethanol plant has so far been put up in the country unlike in India which was the first to commercialize this technology. This is why investors continue to be cautious of putting in the money.

But the government has been aggressively supporting numerous field testing of sweet sorghum varieties nationwide which have been proving to be highly suitable in Philippine soil.