Ethanol could replace 10% of fuel imports

Jamaica is considering substituting up to 10%, or 375,000 barrels a year, of its gasoline imports with ethanol distilled from sugar cane, local newspaper Observer reported. The project is designed to reduce the almost US$700mn a year that the island spends on fuel imports and avoid shutting down the local sugar cane industry after an announcement by the European Union (EU) that it could eliminate the Caribbean's preferential sugar market. The project would involve upgrading the blending facilities of the state-owned Petrojam oil refinery. State-owned oil company the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ), the parent company of Petrojam, is overseeing the project and has started preliminary work. Jamaica is looking at the experiences of Brazil and India, where the use of ethanol as a fuel source is substantially advanced, PCJ managing director Raymond Wright was quoted as saying. Jamaica was one of the Caribbean countries that set up ethanol plants in the mid-1980s to take advantage of preferential access to the US market under the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI). However, of the three plants established in the 1980s only one, Jamaica Ethanol, is still in operation. American company EDF Man Holding owns the plant, which is already the largest CBI exporter of ethanol to the US. The facility recently increased its capacity by 25% to 50 million gallons a year. The company could sell as much ethanol to the US as it can produce, given that CBI countries are far from meeting their quota of being allowed to supply up to 7% of US demand without paying import duties. However, it is projected that to produce the ethanol required for the 10% gasoline displacement, Jamaica would be required to grow an additional 700,000 tonnes of cane, which would require a replanting program.