Oenon Holdings Inc., a maker of sake and liquor, will start ethanol production this year at the nation's largest biofuel plant using rice imported by the government.
Oenon plans to produce 5,000 kiloliters of ethanol by the end of December by processing 12,000 tons of foreign rice from government stockpiles, Masumi Ushigome, the firm's communications department manager, said in a recent interview.
The Tokyo-based company plans to double production next year and boost output to the plant's capacity of 15,000 kiloliters a year in 2011, he said.