A federal biofuels incentive fund that pledged support for Husky Energy’s expanded ethanol plant in western Manitoba has committed to almost $73 million for the facility.
Federal Treasury Board president Vic Toews, a Manitoba MP, announced the funding Monday for the Husky plant at Minnedosa, about 50 km north of Brandon.
Calgary-based Husky, one of Canada’s largest energy companies, will get up to $72.8 million from the federal ecoEnergy for Biofuels program, which signed its contribution agreement with Husky in February.
The incentive fund, which the government said is intended to “help stabilize the Canadian renewable fuel industry,” has a budget of $1.5 billion over nine years to fund biofuel production through to the end of March 2017.
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The program has so far signed contribution agreements with 23 companies, which will be entitled to incentives for up to seven consecutive years.
Husky, which has made ethanol at Minnedosa since the early 1980s, in 2007 expanded the facility’s nameplate full production capacity to 130 million litres of ethanol per year, up from 10 million.
The plant can also produce up to 130,000 tonnes of distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) for use in livestock rations.
