News

Ethanol Summit of the Asia Pacific this week in Minneapolis

U.S. renewable fuels advocates are building off the momentum of record ethanol exports in 2017 to grow market-share.

The Renewable Fuels Association, Growth Energy, and U.S. Grains Council (USGC) are hosting an Ethanol Summit of the Asia Pacific in Minneapolis this week.

USGC president and CEO Tom Sleight says officials from 17 countries are learning about ethanol policies, the value of ethanol, and how the ethanol market is growing.

“It gives these policy makers and marketers and other industry officials kind of a nice blend of all of the above, kind of a good point of reference for how they can approach it in their countries and make a difference.”

Participating countries include China, Japan, India, Australia, and Korea.

RFA president Bob Dinneen tells Brownfield exports are critically important to the ethanol industry.

“As our markets domestically are being constrained by an EPA that doesn’t seem to want to maximize the use of renewable fuels.  They want to put all kinds of shackles on us.”

Dinneen and Sleight both say recent uncertainty with U.S. biofuels policy has the attention of foreign markets.

“It raised some eyebrows about what’s going on here and how it will affect partners in a trading environment.”

And Sleight says the idea of allowing ethanol exports to qualify for RINs could be a serious problem as key importers might threaten those gallons with unwarranted duties.

The U.S. set an all-time high for ethanol exports last marketing year at 1.37 billion gallons.  This year’s pace is up 17 percent compared to the same period a year ago.

 

Tom Sleight audio:

 

Bob Dinneen audio:

 

Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor also talked to Brownfield about the Summit: