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Interfax Central Europe Energy Weekly

PRAGUE.  INTERFAX CENTRAL EUROPE

— The Czech lower house Tuesday unanimously passed an amendment to the law on excise duty that would lower the excise tax rate for mixed diesel fuel that contains at least 31% biofuel component.

All of the 180 deputies present in the 200-seat lower house voted in favor of the amendment, which must now be approved by the Senate.

The new law also makes it mandatory for fuel retailers to add 2% biofuel component to petrol as of January 1, 2008, the same as the mandatory biofuel component in diesel fuel since September 2007. Fuel producers earlier pushed for the deadline to be postponed until March at the earliest.

In the European Union, bio-additives should account for 5.75% of fuels sold in 2010 and 10% in 2020.

PRAGUE.  INTERFAX CENTRAL EUROPE — Leading Czech motor fuels producers Unipetrol — controlled by Polish PKN Orlen — and state-run Cepro, plan to import much of the bioethanol required to be added to petrol as of this year, and already import half of the rapeseed methylester (RME) they have been obliged to add to diesel oil as of last September, Czech daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) reported Thursday.

«We will buy half of the bioethanol needed abroad because it is cheaper,» Michaela Lagronova, spokeswoman for Prague-listed Unipetrol, told MfD.

Unipetrol and Cepro are currently finalizing contracts with bioethanol producers, according to the daily. Bioethanol will be imported mainly from Brazil and RME from neighboring Germany.

«We have been offered bioethanol from Brazil where a liter costs the equivalent of CZK 17,» Cepro CEO Pavel Svarc said, as cited by MfD. «That is CZK 2 less than the cheapest offers in the Czech Republic.»

Cepro will continue to buy bioethanol from Czech producer TTD Dobrovice, however, as that company can keep prices down by manufacturing its product from sugar beet. The state-run motor fuels company may also get supplies from a CZK 1.3 bln distillery built in Trmice in November.

Several Czech distilleries suspended bioethanol production due to high grain prices cutting into their margins while other long-planned projects never got under way, MfD reported.

«We wound up production of bioethanol in November,» Ethanol Energy owner Otakar Motka told the daily. «At the current price of grain it was impossible.»

Date:  31.01.2008

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