BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 13
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Global biofuel production is expected to recover to the 2019 level in 2021, Trend reports citing the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Total biofuel demand for transport declined 8 percent to 150 billion litres (2 590 kb/d) from 2019 to 2020, surpassing the Renewables 2020 forecast of 144 billion litres (2 480 kb/d) for 2020. The largest year-on-year drops in output were in Brazilian and US ethanol production, and in biodiesel production in Europe. Lower output in these markets accounted for 90 percent of biofuel production declines from 2019 to 2020.
Global biofuel production is expected to recover to the 2019 level in 2021, as forecast in Renewables 2020, but this recovery will be uneven. Biodiesel and hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) production increases globally and ethanol expands in India. HVO capacity is also expected to be 50% higher in 2021 than in 2020 if new projects are built on schedule. However, the ongoing effects of the Covid-19 crisis on demand, as well as price uncertainty for ethanol relative to sweeteners in Brazil, continue to keep ethanol production in both the United States and Brazil below the 2019 levels.
In Brazil, sugar mill operators can produce either ethanol or sweeteners, depending on which promises the greatest return. The Covid-19 pandemic has also delayed biofuel policy implementation in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Brazil, for which production growth had previously been anticipated. Nevertheless, biofuel production is expected to be 7% higher in 2022 than in 2021 owing to HVO and biodiesel expansion in the United States and Indonesia, and a return to 2019 ethanol production levels in Brazil.
Although total biofuel production returns to the 2019 level in 2021, ethanol production is forecast to remain 3.6 percent below the 2019 amount, largely due to a slow rebound in the United States and Brazil. Production will remain lower by 8 percent in Brazil and 5 percent in the United States in 2021.
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