South Korea to boost domestic biofuels use

South Korea plans to expand domestic biofuels use through adopting marine biofuel by 2025, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) by 2026 and raising its 2030 biofuels blending mandate in the diesel pool.

The country's trade, industry and energy ministry (Motie) announced the measures from its draft Eco-friendly Biofuel Development Measures on 13 October.

Laws should be amended in 2023 to enable SAF and marine biofuels to be introduced in the middle of the decade, according to the plan. It also calls for a "swift" demonstration process to ensure its timeline for aviation and maritime biofuels can be met, implying it will be targeting the use of domestically produced SAF and bio marine fuels to meet future mandates.

Biofuels mixing in the diesel pool should rise to 8pc by 2030 from its current 5pc by 2030 target. This will be achieved by blending 3pc hydrotreated vegetable oil on top of 5pc biodiesel, because of concerns that higher methyl ester biodiesel blends may cause engine start-up defects in winter. South Korea currently mandates 3.5pc biodiesel blending in diesel until the end of 2023.

Besides the mandates to spur demand, the ministry outlined several measures to boost and integrate biofuels production in South Korea.

Motie has scheduled a prefeasibility study in 2024 to study ways to scale up and integrate biofuels technology, with topics likely to include production of bio-naphtha, biofuel production efficiency and feasibility of advanced feedstocks like microalgae, according to the plan.

A public-private committee will be formed to assess progress on the biofuels strategy and develop joint projects.

The government will support setting up an system to align raw material suppliers with biofuels producers and assist companies' overseas feedstocks purchases.

By Lauren Moffitt