Bioethanol news

Why don't oil majors invest in biofuels at scale?

In recent weeks we have tracked the significant number of migrations among early stage biofuels producers from a "fuel centric" strategy to an emphasis of renewable chemicals, organic acids, food oils, and nutraceuticals.

1  September  2010

Prospects For The Caspian Region's Biofuels

Formerly the USSR's cotton "plantation", the Caspian region is poised to become a major player in the production of biofuels if sufficient foreign investment can be procured. Unlike Brazil, where biofuel is manufactured largely from sugar-cane, or the US where it is primarily distilled from corn, the Caspian region's ace resource is an indigenous plant called Camelina Sativa. This can make the region rich in biofuels, helping a great deal in the diversification of its sources of energy.

17  August  2010

Grodno Azot to launch FAME production facility in Q4 2010

The equipment for the production facility was supplied from the Slovak company OTEZA. At present, specialists are assembling the equipment. When the new facility is installed Grodno Azot will increase the production of fatty acids methyl ester from rapeseed oil four times. The company will become one of the main producers of biofuel in Belarus. Grodno Azot intends to launch a production facility to produce its own rapeseed oil as well.

17  August  2010

Dvorkovich Gives Support to Biofuel Energy Projects

The government should support small energy-generating projects that use biofuel by giving them tax breaks and subsidized interest rates, presidential economic adviser Arkady Dvorkovich said Tuesday. Dvorkovich has been a key advocate of President Dmitry Medvedev's goal to make Russia 40 percent more energy-efficient by 2020. The government has started pursuing the target by phasing out incandescent bulbs for more energy-efficient lights.

17  August  2010

The Summer of IPOs: Gevo files $150M initial public offering

In New York, biobutanol and renewable chemical developer Gevo, ranked #13 in the 2009-10 "50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy" by Biofuels Digest readers and international selectors, filed its S-1 registration statement with the SEC for its initial public offering. The IPO intends to raise up to $150 million in an offering led by underwriters UBS Investment Bank, Goldman Sachs, and Piper Jaffray. the announcement follows a $200 million IPO filing this week by PetroAlgae, in an offering led by Goldman Sachs, UBS Investment Bank, Citi, Piper Jaffray, Cowen & Co, and Baird. Among concerns raised for PetroAlgae: the generally weak IPO market, and the absence of revenues for the development-stage company.

13  August  2010

World Bank reverses: "The effect of biofuels on food prices has not been as large as originally thought."

In Washington, a newly released report from the Development Prospects Group at the World Bank, "Placing the 2006/08 Commodity Price Boom into Perspective", concludes that "...the effect of biofuels on food prices has not been as large as originally thought, but that the use of commodities by financial investors (the so-called "financialization of commodities") may have been partly responsible for the 2007/08 spike."

3  August  2010

«UkrAgroConsult-Black Sea Grain»: quality of Ukrainian wheat will be lower this year

Commodity Market Analyst «UkrAgroConsult» notes that in June and the first half of July the conditions for the ripening and harvesting of the early grain crops significantly deteriorated. The mid-June heat fell on the period of formation and ripening of grains.

22  July  2010

Ethanol, Methanol. MTBE prices

Methanol RU - USD 262\MT

Prices mtbe - ARA - USD 750-770 \MT, RU - USD 870\MT

7  June  2010

Russia's gross grain harvest to be at 95-97 mln tons in 2010 - ministry

Experts have forecasted that Russia's gross grain harvest in 2010 will be at the level of 2009, or at about 95-97 million tonnes. In 2009, Russian farmers harvested 97 million tonnes of grain, an official at the Russian Agriculture Ministry reminded on Tuesday.

23  May  2010

Russia seeks ways to dispose grain stocks

Russian budget suffers huge losses because of the surplus of grain the state granaries have to keep, Moscow's business daily Kommersant reported on Wednesday. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered his deputy Victor Zubkov "to think about the very daring ideas" on where to dispose those excessive stocks. The keeping of grain stocks costs federal budget nearly 1 billion rubles (about 30 million U.S. dollars) per month.

23  May  2010