Ethanol Drives Ten Year Ag Forecast

Cindy Zimmerman

WAOB According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest projections, ethanol will dominate the farm economy for the next decade.

USDA’s Interagency Agricultural Projections Committee, headed by the World Agricultural Outlook Board, this week released “USDA Agricultural Projections to 2016.” According to the report, “strong expansion of corn-based ethanol production in the projections affects virtually every aspect of the field crops sector, ranging from domestic demand and exports to prices and the allocation of acreage among crops.”

USDA analyst David Stallings says by the year 2009, ethanol will consume 30 percent of US corn production, compared to last year’s 20 percent. He expects acreage to increase to as much as 90 million acres by that year and prices to level off after that.

“We see a fairly rapid increase in corn prices for 2007-08 and 2008-09, and then peaking in 2009-10 at an average farm price of $3.75 per bushel,” said Stallings. They don’t expect corn prices to drop below $3.00 a bushel for the next decade.

Ethanol, Government, News

Saab Gives 100 Percent a Go

Cindy Zimmerman

Saab 100 Saab plans to unveil a 100 percent bioethanol-powered engine in Geneva next month.

According to a news release:

GM Powertrain CEO Kjell ac Bergstrom said: ‘Bioethanol is a potent, high-quality fuel which opens up exciting possibilities in helping to meet the environmental challenges that face us. As the need to reduce energy consumption increases, we are exploring ways to run smaller engines that give relatively high power, with and without hybrid technology. This concept car shows that bioethanol can play a key role in this “right-sizing” process, while also minimizing fossil fuel emissions.’

Car Makers, Ethanol, News

Louis Dreyfus Buys More Brazilian Ethanol Plants

Cindy Zimmerman

International commodity trading company Louis Dreyfus is buying an addition four sugar ethanol mills in Brazil to become the second-biggest sugarcane processor in the country.

According to a Bloomberg.com report, Paris-based Louis Dreyfus, which already owns four sugar and ethanol mills in Brazil, expects the acquisition to boost sugarcane processing to 18.5 million metric tons by 2009, from 11.8 million tons this year, the company said in a statement. Financial terms of the acquisition weren’t disclosed.

Ethanol, International, News

More E85 Pumps for Colorado

Cindy Zimmerman

Ritter Colorado motorists will soon have 40 more pumps to fill up with 85 percent ethanol.

According to a press release from Colorado Governor Bill Ritter’s office, 40 new E85 fuel pumps will open at 22 gas stations around this state this year, thanks to an effort by General Motors to expand the availability of the ethanol blend.

In addition to General Motors’ national effort, the Colorado expansion has been spearheaded by the Colorado E85 Coalition, a group of private companies, non-profit organizations, and government agencies dedicated to increasing Colorado’s use of renewable fuels. Two Colorado retailers, Pester Marketing and Western Convenience, will be installing E85 pumps in a total of 22 stations statewide with assistance from the Colorado E85 Coalition.

Car Makers, Ethanol, Government, News

Company Announces “100% Green” Biofuels Technology

Cindy Zimmerman

Diversified Arizona-based Diversified Energy, has announced a “breakthrough biofuels technology” that they say “offers a “100% green” biofuel product containing no fossil fuel components.”

According to a company release, the patent-pending process, termed Centia™, “provides several key advantages when compared with other biofuel processes like biodiesel, ethanol and others.”

Centia™, a name derived from Crudus Potentia (meaning “green power” in Latin), can utilize feedstock oils from edible and inedible animal fats, waste oils, agriculture crops like soybean, algae, newly proposed energy crops, or any other lipid-based feedstock.

Diversified is developing Centia through an exclusive worldwide licensing agreement with North Carolina State University.

Energy, Ethanol, News

Deere Profits Run on Ethanol

Cindy Zimmerman

DeereDeere & Company announced worldwide net income of $238.7 million, or $1.04 per share, for the first quarter ended January 31, compared with $235.9 million, or $0.99 per share, for the same period last year, according to a company release.

Strong operating performance and a positive customer response to the company’s advanced products and services contributed to the quarter’s results, noted Robert W. Lane, chairman and chief executive officer. “This success puts the company in a stronger position to serve a growing customer base worldwide. In conjunction with increasing demand for renewable fuels and other positive global economic factors, it also strengthens our ability to deliver strong financial results,” said Lane.

According to an AP report, “analysts credited Deere’s rosier forecast and stock surge to rising production of corn-based ethanol, which has yielded high grain prices that give farmers more money to invest in equipment.”

Ethanol, News

Ethanol Not to Blame for Tortilla Prices

Cindy Zimmerman

TolmanRising tortilla prices in Mexico are not the result of increased U.S. ethanol production or U.S. corn prices, according to the CEO of the National Corn Growers Association.

Rick Tolman told grain and livestock producers meeting in central Missouri Wednesday that lots of things are being blamed on ethanol that are undeserved and one of them is the price of tortillas in Mexico.

“There’s a quarter of a cent’s worth of corn in a tortilla. You double the price of corn, it goes up to a half cent,” said Tolman. “The reality is that tortilla prices are going up in Mexico because they have a tariff rate quota system that’s a supply system. We export yellow corn, tortillas are made from white corn, they control imports of white corn. They have mismanaged that and they have supply issues. That’s why the tortilla prices have gone up, not because of ethanol.”

Tolman was in Jefferson City, Missouri for a Missouri Corn Growers Association meeting on “Profiting in the New Paradigm: Feed and Fuel Security in the Booming Ethanol Age.”

Listen to his presentation here: Listen To MP3 Rick Tolman (25:00 min MP3)

Audio, Ethanol, News

Loan Guarentee Process Holds Up First Cellulosic Ethanol Plant

Cindy Zimmerman

Iogen Back in June, Canadian biotechnology company Iogen was waiting on loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy to build a $500 million cellulosic ethanol plant in Idaho.

The company is still waiting, according to a report from McLatchey Newspapers.

According to the article, the loan guarentee is being held up because the U.S. Department of Energy office in charge of the process has only one employee and there’s no money to hire more staff to deal with the more than 100 applications that have been submitted so far.

Congress authorized the Department of Energy to back loans for new energy technologies “a year and a half ago,” said Jeff Passmore, Iogen’s executive vice president, “and we still don’t have a loan guarantee initiative up and running. That’s disappointing.”

The company has everything in place to break ground in Shelley, about 10 miles from Idaho Falls, including equity from such investors as Shell Oil. But it can’t close on an approximately $200 million loan without a government-backed loan guarantee.

Cellulosic, Ethanol, Government, News

Biodiesel Heating Up in Brazil

John Davis

Carnaval (Mardi Gras) is not the only hot thing in Brazil at this time of year. A U.S. firm is investing $35 million dollars in Brazil’s burgeoning biodiesel industry. Check out this story from CattleNetwork.com:

“We are going to build a facility capable of producing 28 million gallons of biodiesel from soy and sunflower oils,” said Tyler Bruch, president and chief executive of Global Ag Investments. “We’ll have the crushing capacity built on our property so we’re not at the mercy of buying oils from the large multinationals. Plus we’ll have our own biodiesel plant.”

So will it pay off? Well, the article goes on to say that an accounting firm in Rio pegs the return on investment at 40%.

BrazilPrez11.JPG You might remember my post earlier this month where the President of Brazil attended the opening of the country’s biggest biodiesel mill. (See photo of the event on the right). And Cindy reported last week about how the U.S. and Brazil are seeking an ethanol partnership. Looks like plenty is afoot in the alternative fuels biz way south of the border.

Biodiesel, International

New California Ethanol Plant Announced

Cindy Zimmerman

A New York-based ethanol company plans to build a second plant in California – its fifth currently in the works.

According to an AP report, economic development officials in California’s Kern County announced that U.S. Ethanol Holdings LLC plans to build a $200 million plant in Wasco with the capacity to produce 100 million gallons of ethanol per year.

U.S. Ethanol has four other plants under development in Indiana and Illinois. Construction on the Wasco plant is planned to begin later this year.

Ethanol, News