Mitsubishi Plans Drive on Biofuels Output

Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. aims to take a slice of the growing green fuel market with a planned annual 2 million kiloliters of green ethanol output capacity by 2017, a senior manager told Reuters on Thursday.

The new plants will be in Japan and other parts of Asia, such as Thailand, where supply of feedstock is cheap and ample, said Takashi Miyazaki, a general manager at Mitsubishi’s new energy business unit.
Global demand for biomass ethanol is set to leap to 280 million kl a year by 2030, boosted by policy incentives and new technology cutting production costs, more than six times as much as some 40 million kl currently, according to the company’s forecast based on International Energy Agency data.

“Manufacturing is the most profitable in this field of business as we think supplies will have to catch up with high-flying demand in the next few decades,” Miyazaki said in an interview.

But he declined to elaborate on details of Japan’s top trading company’s investment plans for renewable fuels.

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