South Wales company takes over biodiesel plant

The not-for-profit company, based in Ammanford in Carmarthenshire, currently produces 30 tonnes of biodiesel a week and is now hopeful of producing 40 tonnes a week when the Tredegar becomes operational later this month.

Sundance purchased the assets for the biorefinery at Tredegar's Tafarnaubach industrial estate after previous owners BioTech Oils went into receivership in August 2008.

Sundance already has over 400 suppliers of used-cooking oil, which include Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion county councils and Swansea city council, for whom it collects waste cooking oil from schools, social services departments and civic amenity sites.

And, Sundance intends to build on its existing collection network to provide the additional used cooking oil needed for the Tredegar plant. With Tredegar the company said that this month it expects to produce about 30,000 litres of biofuel during trials to optimise the process. At full capacity production could be over 200,000 litres per month.

Sundance bought the assets for £40,000 with the help of an investment from the Good Fuel Cooperative and a loan from the Charity Bank. The Good Fuel Cooperative is a consortium established in 2008 by five UK biodiesel co operatives – Goldenfuels, Sundance Renewables, Magpie Recycling, Bolton Alternative Fuels Co-operative and Biofuels.org.uk.

Jan Cliff, a founder and director of Sundance, said: “We are keen to succeed with this new enterprise, thereby stabilising local resources, investing in the local economy, contributing to local employment and involving the community. It is putting into practice what the proposed Green New Deal is all about.”

In 2006, the not-for-profit organisation signed a deal with steel giant Corus to recycle the steel drums it uses to collect used cooking oil and received a drum crushing machine and a container for storing the crushed drums.