Latvian says plans to suspend biofuels targets: Correct

Corrects Latvian blending mandate percentages in paragraph 4. This story was first published 10 May.

The Latvian government has confirmed a plan to temporarily suspend its blending mandate obligations for an 18-month period commencing the second half of this year.

The proposal will suspend blending mandates from 1 July 2022 until 31 December 2023. Fuel blenders will still have the option to blend biofuels, but blending mandate legislation will become voluntary.

The amendments to the legislation are being drafted and parliamentary debate will be required before the proposals enter law, the Latvian Ministry of Economics told Argus.

Currently, Latvian legislation calls for a 6.5-7pc mandate by volume for biodiesel in road fuel and a 9.5-10pc for ethanol in gasoline, according to official legislation amendments made in December 2019. Exceptions to this are provided for diesel used in winter conditions between 1 November and 1 April, and gasoline with an octane content of 98 or above, where the ethanol content can be a maximum of 5pc by volume.

Alongside Latvia, Finland has reduced its mandate by 7.5 percentage points for both 2022 and 2023, Sweden is scheduled to freeze its mandates for 2023 at 2022 levels and Norway plans to introduce changes to its mandates that would see the share of advanced and waste-based biofuels increase with the overall mandate decreasing.

The Czech Republic also proposes suspending or even scrapping its ethanol and biodiesel blending mandates. But like the Latvian legislation, this will need to be debated in parliament and will also require changes to the country's Clean Air Act.

Mandate changes have come in response to sharp rises in fuel costs following the outbreak of war in Ukraine, with food security concerns also cited by some as a reason for mandate amendments.

Among the larger EU markets, Germany is currently discussing an amendment to its crop cap, currently at 4.4pc by greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction, with food security concerns cited as a key reason for this.

By Thomas Hughes