150 service stations selling ethanol blend petrol

Caltex has announced it had achieved a new milestone for the number of Caltex supplied service stations selling ethanol blended petrol.

E10 Unleaded, which contains 10% ethanol blended with regular unleaded petrol, is now sold at over 150 sites in the Caltex service station network from Cairns to Canberra. This is more than triple the number of sites selling E10 Unleaded in mid-2006.

There are currently 69 sites in the Caltex network in Queensland selling E10 Unleaded, 81 in NSW and 3 in the ACT.

"The latest Caltex research shows over 50% of motorists in Sydney and Brisbane who have not yet used ethanol blend petrol would consider using it. This is encouraging for further market growth," Caltex managing director and CEO Des King said.

"All new Australian made cars are suitable for use with a 10% ethanol blend and also the vast majority of new imported cars. According to research commissioned by the Australian government, about 60% of vehicles in Australia are suitable for use with E10.

Caltex's 2010 Action Plan target is to have at least 350 million litres of biofuels blended into the fuel, mix which is the equivalent of at least 3500 million litres of biofuel blends. This volume is equal to 10% of Australian petrol and diesel demand.

"Caltex supports the government's market-based policy approach and remains opposed to mandating the use of ethanol. Instead, governments should ensure that E10 can be priced by suppliers significantly below regular petrol, so consumers will choose ethanol blends instead," King said.

"In the near to medium term, this could be achieved through a production bounty or grant for ethanol producers or some other financial mechanism, which would allow for a larger discount of ethanol blends to motorists at the pump and drive higher E10 sales.

"However, longer term sustainable development of ethanol will require commercialisation of much lower cost production through the use of biomass rather than food crops. This emerging technology will enable large volumes of ethanol to be produced more cheaply and enable cost-effective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions."