(Español) Los emergentes India, Brasil e Indonesia, líderes en biocombustibles

Emerging countries will lead the growth in demand for biofuels in 2023 and 2024, with India, Brazil and Indonesia as the main players, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The latest report on renewable energy from this agency reflects that these three countries have large domestic reserves, additional production capacity, relatively low production costs and favourable policies with which they also intend to depend less on crude imports.

Global demand for biofuels is expected to increase by 11% by 2024, the equivalent of 18 billion new liters, driven by interest in securing energy supplies following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, new energy policies in advanced economies will not affect production until after 2024 and only a few countries are trying to accelerate the use of biofuels by next year. Indonesia has set out to increase its biodiesel blend target by up to 35% of fuel in 2023 from 30% in 2022; Brazil plans to increase that percentage from 10% in 2022 to 15% in 2024; and India has committed to achieving 20% ethanol blending by 2025.

In developed economies, the demand for biofuels is estimated to damage 6% between 2022 and 2024 (5,700 million liters), especially in the United States and Europe, which are interested in strengthening their energy security. The European Union is planning, in the absence of a final agreement, to raise its target for renewable energy consumption from the current 32% to 42.5% in 2030, although there are doubts about the difficult verification of the sustainable origin of biodiesel imports, the 40 % of total in 2022.

In addition, the study points out that the prices of ethanol, biodiesel and renewable diesel remain above those of gasoline and diesel, so biofuel can only be more profitable for consumers if it is subsidized.