Global Ethanol Summit Leads To Ethanol Exports To The Middle East, Africa, Europe

Using Agricultural Trade Promotion (ATP) program funds, the U.S. Grains Council sponsored participation at the Global Ethanol Summit of ethanol buyers from nearly two dozen Middle Eastern, European and African countries, who subsequently purchased $245 million in U.S. ethanol.

The Global Ethanol Summit was hosted in Washington, D.C., in October 2019 by the Council, the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) and Growth Energy to gather more than 400 high-level government and industry officials from 60 countries to learn about biofuels policy and using ethanol. Participants included more than 50 key government officials and senior-level industry leaders, including ethanol producers, oil refiners, fuel buyers, and traders from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

The delegations from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa joined the Global Ethanol Summit to better understand the potential impacts of higher-level biofuels policies, including decreasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and improving clean air quality.

They also traveled on Council-sponsored post-Summit tours in Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota to see the full production and value chain of ethanol in the United States, highlighting ethanol as a cost-competitive transport fuel that offers long-term, medium-term, and short-term benefits to consumers, suppliers and the governments that regulate them.

The United States exported around 238 million gallons (85 million bushels in corn equivalent) of ethanol in marketing year 2018/2019 to the Middle East, Europe, and Africa, representing 15 percent of the total exports of U.S. ethanol around the world, valued at $369 million, according to USDA data. Following the Summit, the participants from Europe, the Middle East and Africa shipped 139 million gallons of U.S. ethanol in MY 2019/2020 (until April 2020) – equivalent to 49 million bushels of corn – mainly to the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Arab Gulf countries (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman), Turkey, Cyprus, and Nigeria. These sales had a total value of $245 million.