Japan's first rice ethanol plant sees 2009 start

TOKYO, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Japan's first commercial plant to produce ethanol fuel for automobiles from locally grown rice will reach full capacity of 1,000 kilolitres (220,000 gallons) a year by March 2009, a few months behind schedule, said a senior manager in charge of the project.

The project in Niigata, central Japan, for which the Japanese government is paying half the plant construction cost of 1.6 billion yen ($15 million), is one of the nation's three such government-backed commercial production schemes.

It is managed by the National Federation of Agriculture Co-operative Associations (Zen-Noh) and will use non-food rice.

Ippei Koike, a general manager of Zen-Noh's farming planning department, said the delay is partly due to paperwork for construction approval.

He said farmers were planting two types of super-harvest rice in more areas than planned this year after the 2007 harvest of one type gave a yield some 25 percent less than expected.