Reading Time: < 1 minute New York | Reuters — The U.S. government on Wednesday announced finalized targets for biofuel use for next year, requiring that energy companies blend 19.28 billion gallons of renewables into the nation’s fuel supply. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a statement set the target for conventional biofuel, or ethanol, at 15 billion gallons and […] Read more
U.S. ups biofuel requirements in win for Big Corn
From cornstalks to sugar
Farmers ready to participate in bioeconomy
Reading Time: 5 minutes With consumers pushing for a greener, more sustainable chemical industry, agriculture is poised to play a key role in the new bioeconomy, especially with renewable resources that can be converted into bioenergy and biobased chemicals. This time, farmers aren’t waiting around to find out how they can get involved. A group of farmers in southwestern […] Read more
Taming bearish corn markets
We’re back to the corn prices we saw before the great ethanol boom, but weather is always a wild card
Reading Time: 5 minutes The 2016 growing season in the United States has been excellent for corn production, and it’s making distant memories of the 2012 drought that reduced U.S. corn yields and sent prices into the stratosphere. Such a severe drought doesn’t happen very often. At that time it drove corn futures to an all-time high of $8.49 […] Read more
Canada unveils carbon price, energy-producing provinces unhappy
Reading Time: 2 minutes Reuters — Canada’s federal government on Monday vowed to bring in a minimum price on carbon emissions by 2018, prompting one energy-producing province to threaten legal action and another to demand approval of an oil pipeline in return. Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who took power last November promising to do more to protect the […] Read more
China slaps anti-dumping duties on U.S. DDGS
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago/Beijing | Reuters — China on Friday slapped anti-dumping duties on a U.S. animal feed ingredient known as distillers’ dried grains (DDGS) amid an intensifying spat between the world’s two largest economies over agricultural trade which totaled over US$20 billion last year. Beijing’s preliminary decision calls for duties of 33.8 per cent, effective immediately, the […] Read more
Clinton campaign studying alternative to U.S. ethanol mandate
Reading Time: 3 minutes Washington/San Francisco | Reuters — Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign has solicited advice from California regulators on how to revamp a federal regulation requiring biofuels such as corn-based ethanol be blended into the nation’s gasoline supply, according to campaign and state officials. The move is the clearest sign yet that, if elected, Clinton […] Read more
ADM eyes ethanol asset sales as weak margins hit Q2
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — U.S. grain trader Archer Daniels Midland is pulling back in ethanol and exploring sales of its corn dry mills that produce the biofuel, the company said Thursday after reporting a lower second-quarter profit due partly to weak ethanol results. Chicago-based ADM, one of the world’s top ethanol makers, has made presentations […] Read more
Report finds ethanol, bioenergy no threat to food security
Reading Time: 2 minutes New York | Reuters — Bioenergy produced from crops does not threaten food supplies, researchers funded by the U.S. government, World Bank and others said in a report Tuesday, dealing a potential blow to critics of the country’s biofuels program. There is no clear relationship between biofuels and higher prices that threaten access to food, […] Read more
U.S. holding company offers to buy grain handler Andersons
Reading Time: 2 minutes Reuters — HC2 Holdings Inc., a company run by former hedge fund manager Philip Falcone, said on Tuesday it has made a bid to buy U.S. grain handler Andersons Inc for about US$1 billion in cash. Andersons is not looking to be acquired, the company’s new CEO told Reuters a day earlier. “As a public […] Read more
Crude’s slide hampers demand for Canadian biofuel
Reading Time: < 1 minute CNS Canada — The trickle-down effect of slumping crude oil prices is being felt in the Canadian biofuel market and softening demand for corn and soybeans. Traditionally, ethanol is cheaper than gasoline, which encouraged processors to blend more than the mandated amount, according to Andrea Kent, president of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association (CRFA). “When […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
