A plan to make gasohol E20 the primary fuel for motorists in July has been postponed indefinitely because of higher biofuel prices, creating a financial burden for the Oil Fuel Fund.<\/p>\n
The Oil Fuel Fund Administration Office (Offo), which subsidises gasohol and biodiesel, found prices of ethanol and palm oil-made methyl ester have increased for many years, exceeding even those for pure gasoline and diesel.<\/p>\n
Officials want E20, a mix of 20% ethanol and 80% unleaded gasoline 95, to replace gasohol 91, making gasohol 95 an alternative fuel for drivers. Yet the plan has faced several delays.<\/p>\n
Gasohol 91 and 95 have a 10% ethanol blend. They differ in their octane rating numbers.<\/p>\n
Permanent energy secretary Kulit Sombatsiri said biofuels have lost their competitiveness in terms of production costs.<\/p>\n
The reference price of ethanol, which is made from sugar and cassava, stood at 24.83 baht a litre on Feb 12, compared with 13.83 baht a litre for the ex-refinery price of gasoline 95.<\/p>\n
The methyl ester reference price was 42.83 baht per litre, compared with 15.5 baht per litre of high-speed diesel, excluding tax and levy.<\/p>\n
According to Offo, the subsidy for gasohol E20 was 2.28 baht a litre last Thursday.<\/p>\n
The subsidy for gasohol E85 was 7.13 baht a litre and the subsidy for biodiesel B20 was 4.16 baht a litre.<\/p>\n
E85 is an 85% ethanol blend, while B20 is a mix of 20% methyl ester and 80% diesel.<\/p>\n
“We have to delay the E20 plan until biofuel costs decline, with their demand and supply in balance so they do not affect the Oil Fuel Fund,” said Mr Kulit.<\/p>\n
E20 was launched as an alternative fuel in January 2008 when the global oil price rose to US$100 per barrel.<\/p>\n
Officials support use of E20 because they want to see sugar cane and cassava planters play an increasing role in the domestic oil market.<\/p>\n
The government also wants to increase the prices of agricultural commodities such as sugar, cassava and palm oil by using them as biofuels.<\/p>\n
Under the Offo Act, subsidies for biofuels must be capped and terminate within seven years after 2019.<\/p>\n
The plan to make E20 the primary petrol faced several delays in 2020 because the government needed ethanol to make hand sanitisers when Covid-19 hit Thailand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A plan to make gasohol E20 the primary fuel for motorists in July has been postponed indefinitely because of higher biofuel prices, creating a financial burden for the Oil Fuel Fund. The Oil Fuel Fund Administration Office (Offo), which subsidises gasohol and biodiesel, found prices of ethanol and palm oil-made methyl ester have increased for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572,5571],"tags":[5714,12384],"supplier":[],"class_list":["post-85309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","category-co2-based","tag-biofuels","tag-ethanol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85309"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=85309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}