The Philippines will not pursue the use of waste oils such as used cooking oil (UCO) for domestic biodiesel production because of quality concerns and adequate supplies of domestic vegetable oil feedstock.
The Department of Energy (DOE) technical team has looked into the potential of UCO to supplement coconut oil as a biodiesel feedstock but found pre-treatment requirements would be too high to ensure UCO methyl ester meets the Philippine national fuel standards, Philippines undersecretary of energy H E Felix Fuentebella said on the sidelines of Singapore International Energy Week.
Some market participants consider the Philippines a potential growth market for sourcing UCO feedstock for biodiesel, hydrotreated vegetable oil and sustainable aviation fuel production. It exported 7,500t of the waste oil during January-August this year, according to GTT data, with two-thirds sent to South Korea. This was up from 4,200t of UCO exported during 2022.
Domestic coconut oil supplies are already considered sufficient to fulfil the Philippines' requirements for biodiesel production to meet a 5pc biodiesel blending in diesel (B5) mandate, Fuentebella said. But the high price of domestically-produced coconut methyl ester (CME) remains a limiting factor to increasing the blend rate, he admitted.
The Philippine biodiesel mandate has stagnated at B2 since 2009, despite the DOE's higher aspirational blend targets of B5 by 2015 and B10 by 2020.
Market manipulation by coconut growers is a likely reason for the high price of Philippine CME, Fuentebella said, adding that discussions are continuing to address this issue.
E20 offers boost to ethanol imports
Finalised standards for 20pc ethanol blending in gasoline (E20) will be released on 15 November, Fuentebella said, after which supplies of E20 at retail outlets will be voluntary.
The Philippine Biofuels Act allows fuel ethanol imports when domestically-produced stocks are inadequate to meet mandated demand. Since 2016 domestic ethanol has been able to supply only around 50pc of total requirement for the country's E10 mandate, while imports from US have made up the shortfall.
As a result, voluntary E20 rollout may be expected to boost ethanol imports only if prices for the biofuel become competitive against gasoline.
The US Department of Agriculture forecasts fuel ethanol imports will rise to 310mn litres throughout 2023 under the current E10 mandate, up from 277mn l in 2022.
