Biodiesel News

Renewable fuel producer UPM has started commercial production at its renewable diesel biorefinery in Lappeenranta, Finland. The UPM Lappeenranta Biorefinery is based on a hydrotreatment process developed by the company, and produces approximately 120 million litres per year of renewable UPM BioVerno diesel. UPM's BioVerno diesel, which is produced out of crude tall oil, a residue of pulp…
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Indonesia, the world's largest palm oil producer, has plans to increase the diesel blending rate this year to cut fossil fuel import costs, reports Bloomberg. The blending rate will be raised from 10% to 15% this year and subsequently to 20%, according to Sofyan Djalil, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs. Indonesia is promoting biofuel use in an attempt to help utilise increasing supplies…
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Amyris, an industrial bioscience company, has announced the successful completion of a diesel demonstration program with Volkswagen of America. The program was designed to test the commercial readiness of Amyris renewable diesel and its ability to enhance VW’s diesel technology. The collaboration included evaluating emissions reductions and demonstrating the performance of…
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The European Commission has approved under the EU Merger Regulation a Dutch joint venture (JV) company between the Singaporean Wilmar International and Italian Fox Petrolifera Italiana. The new JV company will produce biodiesel at Fox Petrolifera’s existing biodiesel facility in Italy. Both of the parent companies produce biodiesel and crude and refined glycerine on their own, in addition…
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The Brazilian special committee on national development has approved a senate bill outlining the plan to increase the biodiesel blend in the nation’s fuel supply. The new bill mandates that 7% of biodiesel be blended into diesel fuel, and the amount is set to rise to 10% within three years. Calls have been made to further increase the blend to 15% if tests with the newly-set blending levels…
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The ASTM International's Aviation Turbine Fuel Standard (ASTM D1655) has been revised to safely adapt to the growing use of biodiesel used throughout the world. For decades, D1655 has been used to ensure quality control and safe distribution of jet fuel takes places within the industry. Biodiesel blends – which have a small percentage of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) – increasingly…
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Algenol has joined the US Secretary of Energy, Ernest Moniz, and the US Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzker, on a business development mission to China. Algenol joins a team which also includes the likes of GE, Southern Company, Honeywell, Praxair, Alcoa and Lockheed Martin. 'The companies selected [...] are key reminders that, through world class innovation of US companies, we can decrease…
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The Danish fuel, oil, and energy company OK has introduced a new sustainable biodiesel into its petrol stations. The new biodiesel is produced from the residue left over in the production of first generation biodiesel from rapeseed. Previously, this residue was discarded, but using an enzymatic process it can now be used to manufacture a clean waste-based biodiesel.  The fuel is supplied by…
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Chemical engineers from Iran have found a way to produce biodiesel from castor oil without the need for extra petrochemical methanol using a biorefinery set-up. Producing biodiesel from vegetable oils is not completely renewable, as the standard transesterification process requires the use of methanol, which is usually produced from petrochemical sources. The researchers, Hamed Bateni and…
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The Indonesian government expects the country’s biodiesel consumption to have diminished by nearly half this year compared to 2014. Government officials say that in 2015 the country is expected to have consumed a total of 825,000 kilolitres of biodiesel, which marks a dramatic 49% decline from the 1.6 million kilolitres consumed last year. According to Bayu Krisnamurthi, head of the…
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The Port of Rotterdam has announced that the throughput of biofuels was 15% lower in 2014 than in 2013, representing a decrease of 3.8 million tonnes. This, the port says, is primarily due to a decrease in imports of biodiesel from Indonesia and Argentina as a result of extra import duties and taxes on dumping. Declining imports have been compensated by the growth of domestic production. The…
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As of May, UPM's new wood-based BioVerno diesel fuel has been available at St1 and ABC service stations in Finland. The product, sold as a part of St1's Diesel Plus and ABC's Smart Diesel range, is a result of UPM's own innovation and is produced at the UPM Lappeenranta Biorefinery, Finland. It uses crude tall oil, a residue of UPM's pulp making process, as a raw material. The high quality fuel…
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Denso will build a large 20,000m2 test facility for the culture of Pseudochoricystis ellipsoidea, an oil-producing microalgae patented by DENSO that is used to help reduce CO2 emissions. The new facility, set to start operations in April 2016, will be located in Amakusa, Japan and will be used to perform verification tests needed to establish large-scale microalgae cultivation…
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The European Investment Bank (EIB) is considering a loan of €38 million to a private investor for the construction and operation of a biodiesel plant in Croatia. The project, whose funders have so far remained anonymous, spans the construction and running of a biodiesel plant using waste, used cooking oil, and animal fat as feedstock, an EIB statement says. The total cost of the project is…
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