Sarina Distillery recorded its best-ever production month in August, smashing its previous record by 500,000 litres.

Group Manager Operations (Ethanol and Plane Creek) Pieter Van Vuren at Sarina Distillery.Group Manager Operations (Ethanol and Plane Creek) Pieter Van Vuren said the distillery produced more than 6.7 million litres of ethanol for the month and was on track to have one of its best production years.

“Our previous monthly record was 6.2 million litres, which was achieved in August 2017, so we really smashed it,” he said.

“The result was a combination of a number of factors, including higher-than-normal sugars in the molasses, lower-than-normal non-sugar solids in the molasses, and zero downtime during the month.

“We also used a new fermentation additive that helps convert and consume some of the non-fermentable sugars in the C-molasses we receive from the mills.

“And, of course, we couldn’t have achieved what we did without a lot of hard work from the BioEthanol team.”

It’s a remarkable turnaround for the distillery team, which had a challenging start to the year and has seen a number of staff changes in recent months.

Sarina Distillery is on track for one of its best production years.“We were one million litres behind earlier this year but have caught that up and are now exceeding budget,” Pieter said.

“We’ve seen a massive improvement in our molasses efficiency.”

Sarina Distillery produces about 60 million litres of ethanol each year. About half of that ethanol is used in the fuel market (E10).

The remainder is used as industrial ethanol, with most sent to Wilmar BioEthanol's Packaging and Distribution facility at Yarraville.

With Wilmar Sugar and Renewables currently exploring a range of alternative uses for ethanol, Pieter said it was an exciting time to be making the renewable product.

“There’s a lot of work to be done but we’ve definitely got a future to be excited about,” he said.