Red Herring Europe 100 finalist

Wow - next week we will be going to the Red Herring Europe 100 Final in Amsterdam, where we are going to present our company MBP Group to a large group enthusiastic entrepreneurs and investors. We are very proud to be invited for this event, even more so as this event typically has a majority of IT and Web centered companies. We are looking forward to the event - I'm convinced we will meet a lot of interesting people and learn a lot.

Neste Oil goes online with 2.000.000 t per year capacity

Neste Oil from Finland has for some years operated a biodiesel plant in Finland employing a unique technology NExBTL. The technology is unlike the normal FAME transesterification and seems to be quite smart. Neste opened in March their new plant in Singapore of 800.000 t/a capacity and a similar plant in Rotterdam is to follow mid 2011. this is on to of the existing almost 400.000 t/a year capacity in Finland.  According to Neste the two new plants are to run on a mix of palm oil, tallow and rape oil. But think about the scale of these plants...

2 M t/a of palm oil and tallow, how much is that? annual production of palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia, the worlds largest producers by far is around 45 M t/a and world production of tallow is appr. 8 M t/y, so Neste will be taking care of a significant chunk of world production. Remember that palm is also an important source of  food, feed and feedstock for the oleochemical industry (soap and technical applications) and also tallow is an important feedstock for the oleochemical industry. In my opinion Neste is on the wrong track. They are going to significantly affect the world balance of oil raw material, and good feedstock should not be used for biodiesel, when it can be used for and is displacing other more vital and necessary applications. This is clearly not sustainable.. no wonder Neste is busy claiming how sustainable they will be in the future: http://www.nesteoil.com/default.asp?path=1,41,540,2384,7906,16306 But as we know Jatropha oil is nothing but a future mirage so far, and microbial and algae oil is also still hopes at best. So for the foreseeable future I assume they will stick to palm and tallow. It will be interesting to see if they are able to consolidate these volumes and how this will affect world prices.

Greenpeace have their own way of communicating about the same theme:

A future for the Biodiesel Industry?

A Crisis for the Biodiesel Industry

Just back from participation in the Bursa Malaysia Palm Oil Conference Price Outlook 2011 it is clear that it is not possible to dedicate more vegetable oil for biodiesel production. The biodiesel industry in Europe has for years been in a deep crisis. Expensive plants have gone from hugely profitable to bankruptcy. At the same time as plants overseas in Indonesia, Argentina and Brazil are profiting from national export tax regimes to stay in business. The whole industry strongly depending on the goodwill of politicians as they try to find an appropriate answer to the strategic and environmental problem: crude oil. The Fuel versus Food dilemma, isn't really a dilemma, as it is clear that good quality biological oil (vegetable or animal origin) must be used for human (or animal) consumption, as the global population continues to grow.

Is there a Future for the Biodiesel Industry?

Well, frankly it is difficult to see in the longer term. Worldwide biodiesel plants are scrambling to turn to by-product based feedstock like used cooking oil and tallow. This however will not save the industry, as the relevant by-products is very limited in volume world wide. The rise in demand has already driven up prices for these feedstock to levels where plants are hardly profitable. It seems like nobody took the time to do the math. At the current stage the biodiesel industry is consuming close to 12% of world wide production of biological oils, and it is still only a drop in the ocean in terms of the demand for transportation fuels.

By-product based Feedstock is the new Cool Aid

For many biodiesel manufacturers producing biodiesel from by-products seems to be the way to go. With a better environmental profile, support from NGOs and lower raw material cost this seems to many manufacturers to be the way forward. While we wait for a better solution to our need for carbon dioxide neutral transportation fuels, we in MBP Group are ready to assist biodiesel manufacturers with access to by-product based feedstock from all over the world. MBP Group is ready with a Renewable Energy Directive (RED) compliant supply chain solution for the German marked already from 2011. Germany is the first European market to fully implement the EU RED and we are ready with a solution for this market starting now.

World Biofuels Markets 2011 in Rotterdam

MBP Group is the proud silver sponsor of the World Biofuels Markets 2011 conference in Rotterdam from 22nd to 24th of March. Here it will be exiting to hear the industry's interest in working with MBP on securing suitable by-products for feedstock. At the WBM MBP will also be promoting our own biofuel production in Scandinavia where we produce and distribute by-product based, RED compliant biofuels as an alternative to mineral oil based heating oils.

It will be interesting to hear where the experts think the biofuel industry is going. Is Neste Oil actually going to be able to turn their investments in two biodiesel plants in Rotterdam and Singapore into profitable operations? When will cellulosic bioethanol become a commercial and competitive product? No doubt the World Biofuels Markets will be an interesting event.

If you are going to WBM, drop me a line so we can meet up.