The price increases for biofuels introduced by the Argentine government could help in the recovery of the biodiesel sector in the country, reports the UkrAgroConsult .
An energy department resolution on January 2 increased biodiesel prices by 59.3% to 77,300 pesos (US $ 900)/ton in January, with monthly price increases to 92,558 pesos (US $ 1,078)/ton in May .
Gabriel Matarazzo, general secretary of the oil, gas and biofuels union federation FASiPeGyBio, told BNamericas that most biodiesel plants in the provinces of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe were closed or operating at a minimum level.
The government’s resolution was “a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
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UkrAgroConsult wrote that the government had already increased biodiesel prices to 48,533 pesos (US $ 575)/ton in October, but the change did not cover operating costs.
Matarazzo said that companies will only be able to start operating normally from February and estimated a fully operational sector in April or May.
As a result, the blending mandate of 10% of biodiesel would be reduced to 5% in January, 6.7% in February and 8.4% in March.
The sector still feared that the devaluation of the peso and the increase in soybean prices, which were paid in US dollars, could neutralize the effects of the resolution, he wrote UkrAgroConsult .
According to central bank research, the peso would lose 41.3% of its value against the US dollar, reaching 126.50 by the end of 2021.
This text was automatically translated from English.
