In the United States (US), biorefinery developer California Ethanol + Power LLC (CE+P) has named international sugar and agribusiness consultant Booker Tate Ltd to help guide sugarcane cultivation plans and ethanol production for Sugar Valley Energy, an approximately US$650 Million 160-acre sugarcane ethanol refinery and bioenergy facility planned near Brawley in Imperial County, California (CA).
Based in Thame Oxfordshire, UK, Booker Tate are expert in the areas of sugarcane, farming, bioenergy, and ethanol refining and has provided management and technical leadership on more than 1,500 projects in 120 countries in the past 55 years, including in North, Central and South America, Europe, Middle East, India, Asia, and Africa as well as in Australia and the South Pacific.
As we proceed through the final financing phase of our project to our anticipated construction, CE+P is excited to partner with one of the world’s most preeminent experts on sugarcane and ethanol production. Sugar Valley Energy has an exceptionally strong team to deliver the project and its numerous regional economic and community benefits, said Dave Rubenstein, CEO at CE+P.
Provide EPC support
Booker Tate will supply the Sugar Valley Energy project with management and engineering personnel to work in concert with the project’s EPC contractor during the construction and operational startup phases.
We have been working closely with CE+P and the Sugar Valley Energy team from the original investigation of the project concept to the current financial phase. We are looking forward to assisting with the construction and being part of the operations once the project is commissioned, said Robert Hodgson, Project Director for Booker Tate.
Functional roles will include civil, electrical, mechanical, and instrument engineers as well as agricultural managers and agronomists to review all aspects of local sugarcane production.
We are proud to be associated with such an important renewable energy project and are fully committed to its success. We will integrate and apply our scientific and commercial knowledge of renewable resources to create maximum value for CE+P and the Imperial Valley community in which it operates, Robert Hodgson said.
Sugarcane planting underway
The team has planted 100 acres of sugarcane to date and is developing schedules for planting an estimated 48,000 acres within the Imperial Valley.
The project is in discussions with area farmers who will contract with the Sugar Valley Energy project to grow sugarcane feedstock for the plant.
Imperial Valley’s growers are among the most sophisticated in the world when it comes to the region’s superior water resources and know-how to produce quality crops, which are exported and consumed internationally. We welcome the added expertise of Booker Tate as we prepare to scale up our sugarcane and energy product production, said Steve Benson, Chief Agricultural Officer for CE+P.
The completed Sugar Valley Energy campus will support an estimated 200 permanent new jobs on site and in the Imperial County community, as well as hundreds of agriculture-related jobs associated with cultivating sugarcane.
Construction of the facility alone is estimated to support more than 9,000 jobs in various trades. The project represents a US$1 billion investment in the Imperial Valley region.
