Spanish company Coener Group plans to invest more than 60 million euro in a complex to produce biofuel from industrial crops in the region of Pleven, in northern Bulgaria.

Coener’s executive director Alejandro Lopez has already met with Pleven regional governor Tsvetko Tsvetkov to discuss details of the planned investment, the local administration said.

The complex is due to be completed in 2009 and would include a bio-diesel refinery, an installation for raw refined oil, a warehouse and a new port on the Danube, investor.bg said.

Coener plans to fund half of the investment costs with its own money and borrow the rest from local or foreign banks. Local business would also be involved in the project.

The biofuel output would be sold domestically, but also exported to Austria, Germany, Romania and Serbia.

More talks between the company and local authorities are scheduled for February 6 2008, when the two sides are expected to discuss environmental safeguards, as well as the water supply and sewerage infrastructure.

Coener is the third Spanish company interested in production of biofuel in the region. In March 2007, Green Fuel and Tepro Bulgaria announced that they were planning to build plants for oil and bio-diesel worth 70 million euro.

Another Spanish company interested in renewable energy production in Pleven is Eolica Navarra, which examined the region in October 2007 as a potential location for a wind energy park.