Federal Government Invests Over $600,000 In Biodiesel Production

November 06, 2007

ALDERSYDE, Alberta – Ted Menzies, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance and a Member of Parliament for Macleod, on behalf of the Honourable Gerry Ritz, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board, today announced $638,559 in funding under the federal ecoAgriculture Biofuels Capital (ecoABC) initiative to help build a biodiesel plant in Aldersyde, Alberta. The plant has also received direct equity investment from farmers totalling $275,000.

“Through the ecoABC initiative we are helping farmers across Canada seize new market opportunities and generate greater profits,” said Parliamentary Secretary Menzies. “This new state-of-the-art biodiesel plant will not only benefit farm families, but will also help strengthen the local community and Canada’s agriculture sector as a whole.”

Western Biodiesel Inc. is constructing and will operate Aldersyde’s new $8 million biodiesel plant. The plant is expected to begin production this December and produce 19,000,000 litres of biodiesel annually.

“Through the federal ecoABC program Western Biodiesel Inc. has been able to leverage farmers’ investment almost three times,” said Dean Cockshutt, Chief Executive Officer of Western Biodiesel Inc. “This financial support will help create another significant increment of Canada’s biofuels production capacity.”

The plant will use canola oil and rendered beef tallow to produce biodiesel and raw glycerine, a co-product that can be refined for various uses in the chemical industry or used as a suitable boiler fuel. The project will help Canada meet its target of an average of 2% renewable fuel content in diesel fuel and heating oil by 2012 and broaden economic opportunities for Alberta and for Canada.

The ecoABC initiative was first launched by the Government of Canada in April 2007 to support the construction or expansion of transportation biofuel production facilities in Canada. The initiative is a part of the comprehensive Government of Canada renewable fuels strategy that focusses on increasing the demand for renewable fuels through regulation; supporting the expansion of Canadian production of renewable fuels; assisting farmers to seize new opportunities in this sector; and accelerating the commercialization of new technologies.