• Reuters cited sources as saying that Indonesia’s plans to raise the mandatory biocontent in its palm biodiesel to 40% may face further delays after the high price of vegetable oil made the programme too costly. Authorities had planned to increase the mix to 40% in July this year but the timetable is now unclear. Dadan Kusdiana, a director general at the energy ministry said that implementing B40 in 2022F will be challenging. Dadan said that 45 to 46 trillion rupiah (US$3.1bil to US$3.2bil) were needed this year to fund the difference between using diesel and palm biodiesel for B30. If prices stay constant, B40 would require 60 trillion rupiah (US$4.2bil). On the technical side, Dadan said that the water and monoglyceride contents in the biodiesel must be reduced, requiring new investments by biodiesel producers.

• Sustainablebrands.com reported that Nestle has launched “Beneath the Surface”, an interactive video platform that allows viewers to directly experience some of the challenges that Nestle and other global companies face in sourcing palm oil. According to a recent research commissioned by Nestle, around one in five millennial shoppers (17%) tends to avoid purchasing products containing palm oil or will actively check to see (20%). Almost half (45%) said that they tend to avoid products containing unsustainable palm oil.

• Biofuels International reported that the US Environmental Protection Agency has recommended retroactively lowering biofuel blending mandates for 2020. The move could provide immediate relief to oil refiners that have to comply with the blending requirements. The agency is also expected to recommend reducing mandates for 2021E but boosting mandates for 2022F.

• Science Daily cited a study by the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene that showed cutting 20% of sugar from packaged foods and 40% from beverages could prevent 2.48mil cardiovascular disease events, 490,000 cardiovascular deaths and 750,000 diabetes cases in the USA over the lifetime of the adult population. The team of researchers created a model to simulate and quantify the health, economic and equity impact of a pragmatic sugar reduction proposed by the US National Salt and Sugar Reduction Initiative. Product reformulation efforts have shown to be successful in reducing other harmful nutrients such as trans fats and sodium.

• S&P Global Platts quoted Brazil’s sugar trade association UNICA as saying that sugar production in Brazil’s Center-South (CS) in the first half of August amounted to 2.994mil tonnes, a drop of 7.5% from the previous year. Mills in CS Brazil crushed 44.62mil tonnes of sugar cane in 1H August, down 4.2% YoY. Sugar’s share of the sugar cane crush was 46.84% in 1H August compared with 47.69% a year ago. UNICA also said that ethanol production in CS Brazil was 2.22bil litres in 1H August, down 2.78% from a year ago.

Source: AmInvest Research - 6 Sept 2021