Written by Giles Clark, London
Wednesday, 16 July 2008

The world biofuels industry today (16th July) issued a sharp rebuke to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its president, Chakib Khelil, in the pages of the Financial Times. In a full page advertisement, the biofuel industries of Brazil, Canada, Europe and the United States took the oil cartel to task for what they say are outrageous, misleading, and unsubstantiated claims about the role of ethanol in world oil markets.
“Efforts to obfuscate and mislead the public about biofuels will do nothing to alleviate the energy crisis gripping the world. We realize that biofuels may be reducing your windfall profits. But, perhaps, the time for OPEC to face some competition has finally arrived,” the groups wrote.
The groups –- the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association (CRFA), the European Bioethanol Fuel Associations, the Brazilian Sugarcane and Ethanol Industry Association (UNICA) and the US Renewable Fuels Association – were answering the charges by OPEC that ethanol was in part responsible for the soaring price of crude oil, a price that will fetch OPEC nations more than $1.2 trillion dollars this year alone.

Full Article