2008-05-20 13:10:13 - The only biofuels companies to have come up with plans to use biofuels production to remediate the lands contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster have decided to pool their resources.

German bioenergy expert PvT Capital GmbH and Irish bioethanol developer Greenfield Project Management Ltd today announced their agreement to jointly develop Greenfield's proposed ethanol refineries in Belarus and to make this the first step in creating giant biomass refineries capable of producing a range of biofuels.

PvT Capital's agreement to partner with Greenfield also brings on board the Center for Environmental

Research (UFZ) of the world-renowned Helmholtz Association of Research Centers..

The plan will transform Greenfield's bioethanol facilities into multi-stage plants producing biodiesel, bioethanol, biogas and green electricity, with a relatively small amount of waste ash containing radioactive isotopes remaining to be stored in safe conditions.

Repeated harvesting of biomass from the contaminated lands will help to remove the remaining radioactivity from the soil, allowing the lands back into full and safe use sooner than if they lie fallow.

PvT Capital will take a shareholding in the Irish company, which has advanced its Belarus project to the starting gate in recent months. The biorefinery will be built under the aegis of Greenfield's existing agreements with the government of Belarus and the state company Belbiopharm, a PPP (Public Private Partnership or Tri-P) in which the state retains a 20% stake and Greenfield an 80% stake.

'We are coming into this project as both a shareholder and as technology partner, bringing in our innovative expertise and a unique concept of biomass processing' said Dr. Chris Verbakel, COO of PvT. 'This partnership marks our entry into the Belarus and represents another step in the implementation of our international expansion strategy. The dynamic Belarus economy offers exciting opportunities in agrofuels and remediation, and our advanced technologies in both fields will enhance and speed up the process of rehabilitating the contaminated Chernobyl lands.'

Michael Rietveld, chief executive of Greenfield, said: 'Coming on the heels of our €65 million tranche of financing at the end of March, this agreement with PvT Capital gives us the means to complete the pre-construction phase of the Mozyr and Bobruisk projects.'
The synergies between our two companies will fully enable us technologically speaking, and will take the projects to a new level, well beyond simple bioethanol facilities. Together, we will create the first ever full-spectrum biorefineries in the Commonwealth of Independent States.'

The team of the privately-held German company has decades of experience in soil decontamination, redevelopment of industrial facilities, and fine chemicals, and more recently has added the development and supply of biodiesel plants to its €2 billion worth of investment volume.

In addition to Belarus, both Russia and Ukraine suffered serious contamination as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear explosion in April 1986. The Belarus biorefinery PPP will provide a platform to build out the decontamination project into Russia and other CIS countries.

In December 2007, PvT Capital announced an agreement with the government of the Ukraine to develop biofuels facilities to aid in faster decontamination of up to 400,000 hectares of the country's territory, and will pursue this project in addition to its commitment to the Belarus Bio-clean project.

Already a partner to PvT Capital in its Ukraine venture, Prof. Frank-Dieter Kopinke and Prof. Holger Weiss of the German Helmholtz Research Center UFZ will provide advice, supervision and certification that products from the contaminated lands are free of any contamination. Scientists from the Helmholtz Association will supervise tillage programmes and their impact on decontamination, the implementation and further development of innovative technologies for the conditioning of biomass and its transformation into safe fuels, the storage of decontaminated by-products, and working conditions during the revitalisation of the soil.

Greenfield recently raised €65 million in investment capital, commissioned an energy supply systems study for its two Belarus plants, and will shortly commence environmental due diligence and Front End Engineering Design.

NOTE: Greenfield Project Management Ltd
Greenfield Project Management Ltd is an investment and project management company incorporated under the laws of the Republic of Ireland. Greenfield specialises in biofuels, with a focus on Belarus and sub-regions.

Greenfield's immediate focus, under a joint venture agreement with the state-owned Belbiopharm company in the Republic of Belarus, is the construction of facilities designed to produce 650 million litres of bioethanol annually and to use these projects as the platform for decontaminating the lands contaminated in the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986. The project is in financing phase, with environmental due diligence and Front End Engineering Design due to be carried out shortly.

NOTE: PvT Capital GmbH
PvT Capital GmbH is among the bigger players in the business of fine chemicals and renewable energies (biodiesel, biogas, bioethanol, ‘green electricity'). The company builds, operates and provides multi-feedstock biodiesel plants around the world, processing virgin vegetable oil, used cooking oil, and animal fats into biodiesel conforming to the EN 14 2 14 quality standards.

The PvT-Team has decades of professional, worldwide experience in the fields of fine chemicals, redevelopment of industrial facilities, decontamination of soils and bioenergy technologies. The government of the Ukraine recently chose PvT Capital as a partner in the remediation of the land contaminated as a consequence of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.

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More information on both companies, the first biofuels projects, and the Chernobyl bio-clean project is available at greenfieldpartners.eu and at pvt-capital.com. Information on science partner "the Helmholtz Association" is at ufz.de

Interviews: Company officers are available for interview. In the first instance, contact Basil Miller of Greenfield