20110915 1046 Biofuel Related News.

ETHANOL INDUSTRY TO STAY HUNGRY FOR U.S. CORN
KANSAS CITY, Mo., Sept 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. ethanol industry is keeping its foot on the gas pedal at production plants and if the trend continues it could defy a government forecast that the industry will have its first drop in corn use since the turn of the century.
The government forecast, which was issued on Monday, was based on expected weaker gasoline use and higher corn prices. Ethanol is blended with gasoline. In addition, some analysts said the expiration of an industry tax credit at the end of the year could also eat into profits.

BIOENERGY TARGETS BASED ON FLAWED SCIENCE -REPORT
BRUSSELS, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Existing targets for biofuels and other forms of bioenergy are based on flawed carbon accounting and should be revised downwards, a draft report by a panel of 19 top European scientists showed.
"It is widely assumed that bioenergy is inherently carbon-neutral. However, this assumption is flawed," said the Scientific Committee of the European Environment Agency, the European Union's environment watchdog.

BRAZIL 2011 ETHANOL IMPORTS TO TOP 1 BLN LTS-UNICA
SAO PAULO, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Brazil will import 1.1 billion liters of anhydrous ethanol in the 2011/12 season (April-March) to meet increasing local demand and to cover local supply shortfalls, sugar cane industry association Unica said on Monday.
The world's second largest ethanol producer, after the United States, imported 78 million liters of the fuel in the previous season.

USDA TRIMS CORN USE FOR ETHANOL TO 5 BLN BU IN 11/12
WASHINGTON, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Ethanol makers will use slightly less corn to make the renewable motor fuel as higher corn prices and lower gasoline use curtail demand, the U.S. government said Monday.
The U.S. Agriculture Department lowered its estimate of corn used to produce the renewable fuel to 5 billion bushels in 2011/12, down 100 million bushels, or 2 percent, from 5.1 billion bushels forecast during August. The estimate was nearly in-line with usage during 2010/11 when 5.020 billion bushels were used to produce ethanol.

US ETHANOL OUTPUT BUMPS HIGHER, EXPORTS STRONG
KANSAS CITY, Mo., Sept 8 (Reuters) - U.S. ethanol production rose slightly in the last week but stocks decreased as export demand for the corn-based alternative fuel increased.
The Energy Information Administration said on Thursday that U.S. ethanol production totaled 896,000 barrels per day in the seven days to Sept. 2, up 8,000 barrels per day from the previous week.

EU TO DELAY ACTION ON BIOFUELS' INDIRECT IMPACT
BRUSSELS, Sept 8 (Reuters) - The European Union's top climate and energy officials have agreed to delay by up to seven years rules that would penalise individual biofuels for their indirect climate impacts, according to minutes of a meeting, seen by Reuters.
The political compromise is designed to protect EU farmers' incomes and existing investments in the bloc's 17 billion euro-a-year ($24 billion) biofuel sector, while discouraging new investments in biofuels that do nothing to fight climate change.

PETROCHINA PLANS TO BOOST BIOFUELS CAPACITY
TIANJIN, China, Sept 8 (Reuters) - PetroChina  plans to add 1.1 million tonnes of biofuels production capacity and import 470,000 tonnes of those fuels by 2015, a company official said on Thursday, as the oil firm aims to tap more alternative energy sources.
Of the planned production capacity, fuel ethanol will be 933,000 tonnes a year and biodiesel will be 165,000 tonnes a year, Fu Xingguo, deputy chief engineer of PetroChina's Petrochemical Research Institute, said at an industry conference.