Shell Thailand to Delay E20 Due to Supply Shortage

26 September 2008

Bangkok Post. Shell Thailand will delay its launch of E20 (20% ethanol) blended gasoline from the third quarter to the end of the year because of an ethanol supply shortage.

“If we expand our gasohol pump network as planned earlier, it requires at least 200,000 litres of ethanol per day. But now I don't think we can make it as ethanol makers prefer to export to gain higher profits,” said Tiraphot Vajrabhaya, the chairman of Shell Thailand.

When people talk about 1.5 million liters per day of ethanol, it is misleading. The figure is in fact the full capacity in theory. Due to some production conditions, the ethanol makers can produce just 800,000 liters per day,” he said.

Demand for ethanol will outpace the country’s output by about 10 million liters in October and 13.6 million liters in November, according to Shell.

In Thailand, 3 million cars now run on gasohol 95 and 91 (both E10 blends) and 150,000 cars on E20. Only five units in the entire country are using E85, and all are under fuel-quality test runs.