Japan urges PAJ to adopt E10 gasoline by 2020: minister

Japan’s environment ministry is in talks with the Petroleum Association of Japan to directly blend gasoline with 10% ethanol by 2020, environment minister Tetsuo Saito said Wednesday. Saito said the ministry is trying to “persuade” the PAJ, which currently blends ETBE into gasoline, to adopt direct blending of ethanol into gasoline. The ministry’s move is part of a government announcement that 600,000 kiloliters/year (3.77 million barrels/year) crude equivalent of biofuels should be consumed by 2020 in order to meet the post-Kyoto Protocol commitment, Saito said. Japan’s new ethanol consumption plan is part of Tokyo’s new target announced Wednesday to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 15% from 2005 levels before 2020. However, Japan’s oil industry is already facing forecasts of decreasing gasoline demand and may view E10 as further eroding gasoline demand, said Harumi Hirai, senior coordinator at the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan. Japan’s new target to consume 600,000 kl/year of biofuels is lower than the government’s ambitious proposed target of 2 million kl/year. However, the new target is higher than its current commitment to consume 500,000 kl/year crude equivalent of biofuels in the fiscal year from April 2010 to March 2011 to help meet its Kyoto commitments. (June 24, 2009)