US ethanol associations lay groundwork for exports to South Korea

The US Grains Council (USGC) and its domestic industry partners, the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), Growth Energy, and the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA’s FAS), have engaged their South Korean counterparts to promote US ethanol exports.

A workshop was hosted last week by the FAS in Seoul, South Korea, to give an outlook on global ethanol supply and demand, offer information about past experience with ethanol policy, and provide a forum for discussion about the merits of using ethanol versus gasoline.

South Korea currently only uses ethanol for industrial but not transport applications, and the audience at the event had little background with blending, USGC reports.

The country consumes about 3 billion gallons of petrol per year, more than any market in Asia other than China, India, and Japan.

“With more than 60 representatives from Korea’s energy industry in attendance, we laid the groundwork to create a favourable atmosphere for the introduction of bioethanol in Korea in the future,” said USGC director in Korea Haksoo Kim, who participated in the conference.

“While this workshop was just step one, the engaged questions and interested audience suggest we are making a difference.”

Following the workshop, the group held meetings with Korea’s energy association, K-Petro, and the largest non-fuel ethanol company in Korea, Changhae Ethanol, to discuss experiences and technologies from the US fuel ethanol industry.

“Based on the feedback we received from this activity, we believe that the energy industry in Korea wants to cooperate with us to learn more about fuel ethanol and possibly develop Korea’s fuel ethanol industry in the future,” Kim said.

“To build on our success from this workshop, we will work on developing a follow-up programme for late this year or early next year.”

South Korea is just one market in which the U.S. ethanol industry partners are engaged, and programmes are also ongoing in Mexico, China, India, Japan, Peru, and the Philippines, with more to come in 2017.