Market

The need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels is pressing. Bioethanol has the potential, at least technically, to replace 85% or more of the global gasoline market in time through the use of FlexFuel vehicles, which are now commercially available in various countries. However, we are still just at the beginning of the biofuels journey. The EU target for biofuels for the road transport sector is currently set at 5% by 2010 and 10% by 2020, and the actual level of biofuels used in Europe is still less than 3%. There are also serious greenhouse gas and sustainabilty concerns associated with biofuel production today. The recently-published Gallagher review assessed the indirect effects of biofuels production and called for a slower increase in targets until the sustainability challenges have been met.

In the United States, one quarter of the corn crop goes to biofuels. An energy bill passed in 2007 requires that 36 billion gallons of biofuels be used annually by 2022, of which 21 billion gallons must be from second generation technologies, but criticism of the policy is growing, including calls to end tax breaks for corn-based ethanol.

It is against this backdrop that INEOS Bio is introducing its leading bioethanol technology. We do believe that 10% or more of the gasoline market will be replaced by bioethanol in Europe and in North America. We also believe that the INEOS Bio process is the most sustainable technology in the world today for the manufacture of large quantities of clean biofuel. INEOS Bio Ethanol delivers at least 90% greenhouse gas savings vs. petrol (gasoline), has the potential to be cheaper than gasoline, and does not divert food crops, nor agricultural land for food crops. We aim to capture a large portion of the future growth in the bioethanol market.