BGS Alcohols advances €34.3m Patras ethanol plant with €7.6m disbursement
BGS Alcohols has received a €7.6 million disbursement toward a €34.3 million integrated ethanol plant in Patras. The facility is designed to produce about 75,000 litres of ethyl alcohol per day from mainly corn and, to a lesser extent, wheat.
Strategic investment moves forward
BGS Alcohols has taken another step toward building a new ethanol production unit in Patras following the disbursement of €7.6 million, newmoney.gr reported. The payment forms part of a €34.3 million investment included in Greece’s Strategic Investments framework. The project will expand domestic capacity for ethyl alcohol and agricultural-origin distillates.
The vertically integrated facility will be installed in the Patras Business Park. Its equipment will cover milling, liquefaction, fermentation and distillation, bringing the main stages of production together at one site. The plans also include a photovoltaic park that will supply part of the energy required by the manufacturing process.
Corn and wheat to supply daily output
The plant is expected to produce about 75,000 litres of ethyl alcohol per day. Corn will be the principal feedstock, supplemented by wheat. Its product range will comprise ENA 96 ethanol, grade B ethanol and agricultural-origin distillates. No commissioning date or annual feedstock requirement was stated in the source material.
BGS Alcohols also plans to recover value from its production residues. The facility will manufacture distillers dried grains with solubles, or DDGS, for animal feed and will purify carbon dioxide generated during fermentation. These two output streams are intended to improve raw-material utilisation alongside the plant’s principal alcohol production.
Domestic users and a 130-year industrial history
The additional output is intended to reduce Greek manufacturers’ reliance on imported ethyl alcohol. Potential users include the beverage, food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, disinfectant and chemical industries. BGS Alcohols currently serves more than 300 customers in Greece and abroad, while its Patras location provides access to the country’s main maritime gateway toward Italy and the Adriatic.
The company traces its history to a distillery founded by the Spiliopoulos family in Patras in 1895, when the city was a leading global exporter of raisins. The original operation converted raisin residues and local grape distillate into pure ethyl alcohol. It stopped during the Second World War, reopened in 1946 and later invested in French and German distillation equipment. In 2022, investors led by Dimitris Chandris and Harry Smith acquired the assets of V.G. Spiliopoulos and began operating under the BGS Alcohols name. The company continues to produce ethanol, distillates, wine, brandy, vodka and gin. According to its latest published financial data, BGS Alcohols recorded 2024 revenue of €8.2 million and profit before tax of €260,000. The €34.3 million project is therefore more than four times the company’s reported annual turnover and represents a major expansion of its industrial base.
