INTERVIEW-Largest EU biorefinery to come onstream H1 2009

By Nigel Hunt

LONDON, May 12 (Reuters) - The largest biorefinery in the European Union should be up and running in the first half of next year, consuming a substantial chunk of Britain's exportable wheat surplus, the head of UK biofuels firm Ensus said.

Ensus chief executive Alwyn Hughes told Reuters the plant, which the company is building in Wilton, northeast England, will make bioethanol and a protein rich animal feed co-product from about 1.2 to 1.3 million tonnes of British wheat.

"We are well into construction now and we will be producing ethanol and animal feed in Q1, Q2 next year," he said in comments released on Monday.

Britain traditionally has an exportable wheat surplus of about 2.5 million tonnes.

The plant will the first major bioethanol plant in Britain, producing around 330,000 tonnes of the biofuel, far larger than the current leader, a British Sugar (ABF.L) facility in eastern England with an annual capacity of around 55,000 tonnes.

It will also produce 350,000 tonnes of animal feed.

Ensus, a start-up company which was acquired last year by two U.S. private equity funds, the Carlyle Group and Riverstone, has a contract to sell all the bioethanol produced in Wilton to oil major Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) while Glencore will supply grain and take the animal feed, Hughes said.

The plant is expected to supply one-third of UK demand for ethanol under Britain's Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO) which mandates that 5 percent of motor fuel should come from renewable resources by 2010.