US Ethanol Industry Looks To Possible Future As Exporter
by Ian Berry (Dow Jones Newswires) …Brazil, faced with tightening supplies of its sugarcane-based ethanol as growers there find better profits in sugar, said last month it is considering importing U.S., corn-based ethanol. While there are limits on how much ethanol would be available for export from the U.S. and how muchBrazil could import, as well as uncertainty about how long the opportunity might last, the news offers the U.S. ethanol industry a new way to look at demand.
“It’s a new, fundamental twist that I don’t think anybody really would have ever anticipated,” said Jason Ward, a corn and ethanol analyst with Northstar Commodity.
The news on Brazil is helping feed the notion that the U.S. ethanol industry, which has been prone to booms and busts but has plenty of incentives and a mandate from the government to increase production, could serve more than just the domestic market. There’s even talk that China could be a potential customer as it rapidly increases its use of the alternative fuel.
… There are questions, however, about how much ethanol the U.S. can ship abroad. The U.S. is still using every gallon of ethanol it produces as a fuel additive. READ MORE
