Jamaica prepares to move to E10 in October with domestic sugar cane ethanol ramp up

In Jamaica, the energy ministry is seeking out ethanol infrastructure partners in support of a proposed move to E10 in October. Under the proposed mandate, ethanol would replace MTBE as a 10 percent oxygenate additive to gasoline. The move, which is expected to cut Jamaica’s fuel bill by more than $2 billion per year, in dependent in installing equipment to convert sugar from 30,000 newly planted acres of cane into ethanol.

The government will take over the Rockford ethanol facility in this month. The plant had been jointly operated by Jamaica and Brazil, and is a centerpiece of the governments efforts to establish a renewable fuels industry to reduce price pressure caused by rising oil prices. The minister for Energy, Mining and Telecommunications, Clive Mullings, said that the country will impose an E10 mandate based on rising domestic production of ethanol.The Jamaican government is expected to announce the date for an E10 mandate as soon as the budget presentations in April. The conversion to E10 follows a successful pilot program that concluded in October 2006. The energy ministry said recently that retrofitting of pumps at gas stations was now underway to enable distribution of the fuel.

The country will initially use Brazilian feedstocks and phase in local production. E10 will replace MTBE as a fuel additive and is expected to save $2 billion in imported fuel costs.

A recent Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) study examined biofuel opportunities in Barbados, Jamaica and Guyana. IDB has also released A Blueprint for Green Energy, prepared by Garten Rothkopf, seeks to cut through the hype surrounding biofuels, and alternative energy writ large, and present an objective, fact-based analysis of the region’s global competitive position looking forward to 2020.

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