Planned ethanol mandates have mostly been reduced to “suggestions” across China’s provinces, but increasing ethanol demand still can’t be met by Chinese domestic producers. U.S. ethanol exports to China will fill the gap, reports Forbes.
Since 2017 Beijing has had big plans to mandate a U.S.-style 10% ethanol blend into its gasoline pool; the original target date was 2020. Domestic logistics, weather, the trade war, and COVID all got in the way of an actual mandate implementation, but today demand for ethanol continues to grow in lock-step with China’s massive gasoline powered motor pool, the world’s largest.
For various reasons, China can’t produce all the ethanol it needs, leaving the United States, the world’s largest producer and exporter of ethanol, as the obvious source to fill the gap.
