In an effort to speed up expansion in ethanol production by 10 billion litres, the government on 31st December approved interest subvention of INR45.73 billion (US$622 million) by extending the soft loan programme to include grain-based distilleries.
Brazil – 2020/21 corn ethanol production to increase by over 80% [Full subscriber]
In the last five years, corn ethanol production in Brazil has increased more than tenfold. The 2020/21 corn ethanol production is expected to increase by 80.3% to 3.021 billion litres according to the national agricultural agency, Companhia Nacional de Abastecimento (Conab).
Brazil reverts to applying 20% tariff for ethanol imports from USA [Full subscriber]
On 14th December, Brazil reinstituted 20% tariff on imports of ethanol from the USA as talks between the two countries on opening up their ethanol and sugar markets have simply not progressed, according to Brazilian government source speaking to Reuters.
Canada – Enerkem, Shell and Suncor partner on US$684 million waste-to-biofuels plant [Full subscriber]
Waste-to-fuels firm Enerkem is partnering with Shell, Suncor, Proman, and Hydro-Québec to build a CA$875-million (US$684 million) renewable chemicals and biofuels plant in Varennes, near Montreal with the support of the Québec and Canadian governments.
Light-dependent enzyme promotes drop-in fuels production from cellulosic feedstock [Full subscriber]
Using an unusual, light-dependent enzyme and a newly discovered enzymatic mechanism, researchers from Aarhus University, Denmark and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have succeeded in producing drop-in fuel from lignocellulosic feedstock.
Commercial-scale biobutanol production in sight with new membrane [Full subscriber]
Researchers at Imperial College London in collaboration with BP have developed a membrane-based extraction system which uses less than 25% of the energy of current processes and produces ten times more butanol with over 99.5% purity.
Regulating bacteria’s metabolism could pave way for increased biofuel production [Full subscriber]
Researchers at University of California Riverside (UCR) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have used mathematical and computational modelling, artificial intelligence algorithms and experiments showing that bacteria have failsafe mechanisms preventing them from producing too many metabolic intermediates.
EU – Marginal drop in ethanol production in 2019 to 6.35 billion litres [Full subscriber]
Ethanol production in the EU 27 + UK from agricultural feedstocks amounted to 6.35 billion litres in 2019, representing a small decrease of 1% from the previous year, according to the European Commission.
Solar-powered liquid fuels production [Full subscriber]
Researchers at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their collaborators have begun a large-scale project demonstrating photovoltaic powered production of hydrogen, which is then used to convert carbon dioxide into methanol.
Covid-19 pandemic triggers fall in global ethanol production by almost 15% in 2020 [Full subscriber]
Strongly impacted by the Covid‑19 crisis, global ethanol production is anticipated to contract 14.5% to 98 billion litres in 2020 – from 115 billion litres in 2019. Around 80% of the y-o-y fall in output is in the key markets of Brazil and the United States, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Monthly Snapshot
Market Overview Following a nine-month high of 15.66 cents in late November, the raw sugar futures on ICE was down to 14.30 cents/lb on 16th December. Two developments – one […]
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