Japan’s Cosmo Oil to start ETBE output from 2011

Japan’s Cosmo Oil will convert an existing facility at its Sakai refinery to produce ethanol-based gasoline additive ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE) from 2011. Japan’s oil industry prefers ETBE, made from ethanol and isobutylene, over pure ethanol, because it does not require distribution network modifications. Cosmo is the second Japanese refiner after Nippon Oil Corp to turn an existing methyl tertiary butyl ether-producing (MTBE) facility to ETBE. A maximum of 10,000 kiloliters a year (63,000 barrels) of ethanol that Cosmo and Nippon Paper Chemicals will produce from papermaking residue will be used as feedstock. (January 9, 2009)