Japan aims to cut 2030 oil demand with GTL, biofuel

apan has set out an ambitious goal of replacing a fifth of its oil demand with biofuels or gas-to-liquid (GTL) fuels by 2030, but the plans will do little to ease its insecurity over imported energy supplies. Japan’s energy agency has been working for more than two years to iron out long-term energy policy guidelines aimed at enhancing national security for the resource-poor country.

..“Theoretically speaking, the government guideline is on the right track. Especially, the introduction of GTL fuels looks practical in the long term, and it will encourage new global investments in GTL projects not just in Qatar but also other gas producers like Indonesia and Australia,” said Hidetoshi Shioda, an energy analyst at Mizuho Securities Co. Gulf state Qatar, home to the world’s third-largest reserves of natural gas, is set to have the world’s first commercial GTL facility in 2006. “But GTLs and bioethanol are imports anyway. How do you secure security of hauling bioethanol from all the way across the globe from Brazil? That’s the question,” Shioda said.

Financial Express