Zimbabwe increases biofuels blending target to 10%

Zimbabwe will need more biofuels to blend into its fuel supply as it pushes ahead with ethanol production, according to the Zimbabwe Mail.

Zimbabwe will now increase its mandatory petrol blending from 5% to 10%.

This comes after government in March reduced to 5% from 15% the mandatory amount of local ethanol to be blended with petrol as President Robert Mugabe’s cash-squeezed government sought to reduce its fuel import bill, according to the report in The Zimbabwe Mail.

According to the report, the government increased the threshold as the nation’s ethanol supplies improved.

“It is hereby notified that, the Minister of Energy… in terms of section 4 of the petroleum regulations published in Statutory Instrument 81 of 2014, approved the increase of mandatory blending to 10%,” said Energy Minister Samuel Undenge in a government gazette published last Friday (26 May, 2017).

“The consequence of this approval is that all licensed operators shall, from the date of publication, be mandated to sell unleaded petrol blended at E10.”

According to the newspaper report, Zimbabwe obtains ethanol from a $600 million (€537m) sugar plant in the southeast of the country which is jointly owned by a state company and private investors. It has the capacity to produce 250,000 litres of ethanol a day.