Philippine biofuels consumption up this year

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines will see higher biofuel consumption this year due to higher demand, according to the latest report of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Fuel ethanol demand is seen growing by eight percent to 693 million liters.  Demand for biodiesel is also expected to increase by 14 percent to 230 million liters “driven by fuel pool increases and not higher blending.”

“Both fuel ethanol and biodiesel programs have stagnated for years with no appreciable upward movement in blend rates despite higher aspirational goals,” the USDA said.

The Biofuels Act of 2006 mandates that all liquid fuels for motors and engines sold in the Philippines shall be blended with biofuels.

The current mandated ethanol blend for gasoline has stayed at E10 or at 10 percent since 2012. Meanwhile, the blending of coco-biodiesel was last increased to B2 in 2007.

In terms of output, the USDA said ethanol production is expected to remain flat at 375 million liters due to feedstock problems.

The country has yet to put in place a solution to insufficient feedstocks for fuel ethanol production, which mainly uses molasses and sugarcane.

“There are recommendations to use corn as feedstock, but this would run counter to the government’s food security program and would require huge investments to establish plants, therefore corn importation was also not considered,” the USDA said.

Local ethanol producers supply up to 50 percent of the country’s bioethanol requirement for gasoline blending while the remaining requirement comes from imported fuel ethanol.

According to the USDA, imported ethanol is seen growing by 12 percent to 310 million liters this year, bulk of which will come from the US.