ECB signs contract with government for Paraguayan Omega Green project

In Brazil, Brazilian businessman Erasmo Carlos Battistella, president of ECB Paraguay, an ECB Group company, signed a contract with the government of Paraguay that authorizes a Free Zone regime for the Omega Green project, an advanced biofuel plant in the district of Villeta, on the banks of the Paraguay River. The contract was signed on September 11 by three Paraguayan ministers of State: Finance, Benigno Lopez, Industry and Commerce, Liz Cramer, and Public Works and Communication, Arnoldo Wiens Durksen. The installation of the Free Zone was authorized by Presidential Decree No. 3269, of the President of Paraguay, Mario Abdo Benítez, signed on January 20, 2020.

The engineering project is estimated to be completed by the end of the year, which allows maintaining the forecast of compliance with the schedule with the start of works for the beginning of next year, following the global recovery of the economy, with an estimated execution time of 30 months.

Launched in February 2019, the Omega Green project contemplates the construction of the first advanced biofuel plant in the Southern Hemisphere. The Villeta region has a strategic position, as it is a port and industrial district, just 45 kilometers from Asunción. It will produce HVO green diesel, an acronym in English for hydrotreated vegetable oil, renewable aviation kerosene, or SPK, in English, and Naphtha Verde, which is used in the chemical industry to manufacture green plastic and other sustainable products. HVO and SPK are biofuels that emit less greenhouse gases than fossil diesel.

Barclays and UBS banks are responsible for the financial structuring of  $800 million project. Among the project’s suppliers is Honeywell UOP, holder of UOP Renewable Jet Fuel Process ™ renewable fuel refining technology, Crown Iron Works, an American technology company that produces advanced biofuels from the processing of vegetable fats and non-animal fats edible, and Acciona, a Spanish company that is among the largest in the world in the area of engineering and construction.