Cassava-Based Ethanol Industry Performs Well
From Q4, 2020, the profit from producing cassava-based ethanol turned from negative to positive. Currently, cassava-based ethanol is the only variety maintaining profits in the edible and industrial ethanol industry. Affected by the tight supply and high prices of corn, the cassava-based ethanol industry development will exert a great impact on China’s ethanol market in the future.
Since September 2020, the cassava-based ethanol industry got rid of profit losses, pushing the industry prosperity to grow obviously. From 2018 to 2019, China’s cassava-based ethanol industry underperformed. In 2019, the profit from producing cassava-based ethanol averaged RMB -391/mt. In 2020, the annual average profit at the cassava-based ethanol industry was RMB 150/mt. In the first two months of 2021, the profit from producing cassava-based ethanol reached RMB 1,115/mt. Supported by the favorable profits, cassava-based ethanol plants showed higher production enthusiasm. Besides, most cassava-based ethanol plants were located in sales regions, supported the market sales.
According to SCI’s statistics, China’s edible and industrial ethanol capacity was 14,993kt/a, and the effective capacity was 11,289kt/a. The cassava-based ethanol capacity was 4,910.5kt/a, and the effective capacity was 3,390.5kt/a. In terms of capacity layout, 72.08% of cassava-based ethanol capacity was located in East China. Therein, the cassava-based ethanol capacity in Jiangsu and Shandong was 1,340kt/a and 800kt/a respectively, ranking first and second.
