25% of New U.S. E85 Production Now on Hold
The recently enacted U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act mandated 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022. Good luck with that. Purchasing.com reports that soaring corn prices, a go-go ethanol industry and so-so E85 sales have turned the current bio-fuels boom into a damp squib. “Late last year, about 5.6 billion annual gallons of new or expanded fermentation ethanol capacity was due for completion in 2008, reports Nathan Schaffer, a fuels analyst with PFC Energy in Houston. Of that, he says, about a quarter has been ‘put on hold or taken off the boards’ since the start of the fourth quarter of 2007.” Maybe that’s because America already has an eight billion gal/year ethanol production capacity, relative to six billion gallons worth of domestic consumption. As R. Jeffrey DeReamer, president of EthanolMarket.com puts it “Supply is not going to be an issue for [ethanol] buyers this year.” Ya think? Oh, and “domestically produced ethanol will be supplemented by imports of the commodity from Brazil and the Caribbean this summer.” If the ethanol industry is going to stand on its own two feet (i.e. stop sucking on the government tit), consumers and retailers better fall in love with E85 STAT. В