AFTER conglomerate Metro Pacific Investment Corp. pulled out from its biofuels projects, Basic Energy Corp. (BEC) has found a new partner.

BEC said Monday that it has identified Canadian-based Nexum Energy Corp. to be one of its possible strategic operating and financial partners for the development of its projects. In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, BEC signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Nexum to pursue a joint venture for biofuels production in the country.                 

Nexum holds exclusive sales and marketing rights to the Philippines for the “Nexum Technology” and plans—jointly with BEC—to develop, build, own and operate a 200,000-liters-per-day ethanol plant, using cassava as feedstock.  The ethanol plant is also being planned to produce up to 8-megawatt of green power, natural gas and organic fertilizers. 

Jose Reyes Jr., BEC executive vice president and treasurer, the joint venture with Nexum was a welcome development and could offer a great opportunity for other energy-related undertakings in the future.

“Nexum was among several entities which expressed ardent interest in our ethanol plant project, and with the signing of the MOU for a joint venture with Nexum, we can now proceed with developing the fully-integrated ethanol facilities we have envisioned,” he added. 

Reyes said the ethanol project is in line with BEC’s recent signing of a memorandum of agreement with Ecomarketfarms Inc. to greatly expand their cassava project in the Zamboanga Peninsula.  Metro Pacific earlier said the firm decided to pull out from the project as “financial models presented by Basic Energy, while profitable, did not meet expectations.”

BEC said Nexum own, licenses, constructs, operates and markets “Nexum Technology,” a proprietary, patent-pending technology that aims to revolutionize the conventional ethanol industry. “Nexum Technology” combines proven conventional front-end ethanol production and back-end biogas technologies to formulate the most energy efficient ethanol facility. EnviroPlus is based on proven best practices in the ethanol industry merged with proven anaerobic digestion technology.

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AFTER conglomerate Metro Pacific Investment Corp. pulled out from its biofuels projects, Basic Energy Corp. (BEC) has found a new partner.

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