23/02/2010 (The Copenhagen Post Online) - Japanese company invests in Danish straw-based biofuel technology for an undisclosed sum.

Jutland-based company Inbicon has scored its first export order, providing a Japanese company the technology to ensure that waste from Malaysian palm oil production is converted to 2nd generation bioethanol, according to financial daily Børsen.

Industrial giant Mitsui purchased the rights to the production for a number of its manufacturing facilities in Malaysia, where residues from the palm oil industry will be converted into fuel. Details of the deal were not released.

Inbicon’s production facility, owned by energy giant Dong, is located in the city of Kalundborg and only opened this past December. Its primary customer has been Statoil, for whom it provides fuel manufactured from straw.

The Kalundborg facility’s ability to turn common straw into fuel makes it one of the world’s most cutting edge biofuel plants in the world.

Although the plant now works commercially, it was originally constructed only as a demonstration plant whose primary goal was to attract foreign firms which would buy Inbicon’s production technology when future facilities for the production of bioethanol were to be built abroad.

And Inbicons selling point has always been that although the 2nd generation bioethanol has been from straw, the plant can also be converted to produce fuel from corn, sugarcane, palm oil and other agricultural residues.

‘There are a lot of waste products from the palm oil industry that, frankly, just sit and rot,’ said Christian Morgen, Inbicon’s sales manager. ‘With our technology you can get many useful products in the form of bioethanol and also produce one that can be used as animal feed.’

Morgen said scientists had been working on the technology for about 10 years. Around a year ago, Inbicon began tests for Mitsui as to whether the technology could be used with palm oil waste materials. Once that was found to be successful, the company began to make calculations on whether the process would also be profitable.

Inbicon has invested nearly half a billion in technology. It recoups the money through charging companies that want to use Inbicon technology a flat sum when a foreign production facility is built. It thereafter gets subsequent, ongoing royalty payments.