Singapore raises road fuel taxes, adds support for EVs

Spanish Market: Emissions, Oil products
16/02/21

Singapore has raised gasoline taxes by more than 20pc and announced new incentives for electric vehicles (EVs) in its 2021 budget.

Taxes on premium gasoline, with a retail octane number (Ron) above 97, have been increased by 23pc or S$0.15/litre (11¢/l) to S$0.79/l. Duties on 90-97 Ron gasoline rise by S$0.10/l to S$0.66/l.

The tax increases, the first for six years, take effect immediately. Rebates will be in place for a year starting from August to cushion the impact.

Singapore, a major oil refining hub, is also one of the world's most expensive places to own a vehicle as the government seeks to limit congestion on the city-state's roads and encourage the use of public transport.

The budget also introduced more tax breaks and rebates for EVs, as well as S$30mn in new funding for the sector over the next five years.

Singapore's carbon tax, which is currently set at S$5/t of greenhouse gas emissions, will be reviewed after 2023 in line with a planned increase to S$10-15/t by 2030, deputy prime minister Heng Swee Keat said.

By Kevin Foster

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30/04/25

Repsol sees Spanish refineries back to normal in a week

Madrid, 30 April (Argus) — Repsol said it expects its five Spanish refineries to return to normal operations within a week following Monday's nationwide power outage. The company confirmed that power was restored to all its refineries on Monday evening, allowing the restart process to begin. It will take three days to restart the crude distillation units and 5-7 days to restart the secondary conversion units, with hydrocrackers taking the longest, according to chief executive Josu Jon Imaz. A momentary and as-yet unexplained drop in power supply on the Spanish electricity grid caused power cuts across most of Spain and Portugal, disrupting petrochemical plants and airports, as well as refineries. Imaz noted that Repsol was fortunate that its refineries avoided damage from petroleum coke formation and other solidification processes during the shutdown. Repsol's 220,000 b/d Petronor refinery in Bilbao was the first to restart, thanks to electricity imports from France, he said. State-controlled petroleum reserves corporation Cores has temporarily reduced Spain's obligation to hold 92 days of oil product consumption as strategic reserves by four days, mitigating potential supply issues from the outage. Imaz declined to speculate on the cause of the power outage. By Jonathan Gleave Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

New Zealand's Auckland airport delays new runway plans

30/04/25

New Zealand's Auckland airport delays new runway plans

Sydney, 30 April (Argus) — New Zealand's Auckland airport, the country's largest, will delay plans for a second runway for at least 10 years because of operational and efficiency measures, it said on 29 April. Its plans to build a second runway by 2028 would be delayed by a decade, but operational innovation could extend that timeline further. The airport's master plan anticipates 38mn passengers/yr will transit through Auckland by 2047, up from 18.6mn in the 2024 fiscal year to 30 June, with air cargo growing by 40pc to 223,000 t/yr by 2047. The airport has yet to reach pre-Covid-19 passenger numbers and its main user, state-controlled carrier Air New Zealand, has reported ongoing problems with aircraft availability , which has slashed its available seat kilometres — a metric used to calculate capacity — in January-June. Auckland's passenger numbers for the first three months of 2025 dipped by 1pc on the year and on the quarter (see table) with domestic travel plummeting while international transits increased slightly on the quarter. Auckland's available seats to the US dropped by 18pc during March because of cancelled services, the airport said. New Zealand's jet fuel imports totalled 26,000 b/d in the January-March quarter, data from analytics firm Kpler show. Official data for October-December 2024 show 34,000 b/d of imports, up by 17pc on the quarter. The New Zealand government is exploring options for increasing fuel security, including developing biofuels, in the wake of twin reports into the nation's situation released in February. By Tom Major Auckland Airport passenger traffic (mn) Jan-Mar '25 Oct-Dec '24 Jan-Mar '24 q-o-q % ± y-o-y % ± Total 4.93 4.99 5 -1 -1 International 2.79 2.75 2.79 1 0 Domestic 1.86 2.24 2.21 -17 -16 Source - Auckland Airport Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

DG Fuels eyes larger, later Louisiana SAF plant

29/04/25

DG Fuels eyes larger, later Louisiana SAF plant

New York, 29 April (Argus) — US renewable fuels company DG Fuels intends to produce more sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) than it initially planned at its flagship Louisiana project, albeit on a later timeline. DG Fuels president Christopher Chaput told Argus that the company is working to reach a final investment decision on its Louisiana facility by the first quarter of next year and is on track to start delivering "meaningful" amounts of SAF from the site in 2030, later than initially expected. The company continues to look at other potential facilities across the country but is prioritizing its Louisiana plant, which will use the Fischer-Tropsch chemical process to gasify agricultural waste into low-carbon fuels. "Not exclusively, but we are focusing really, really, really hard on the first project, which is Louisiana," Chaput said. Potential sites in Nebraska and Minnesota are the next-furthest along, and the company still owns land in Maine where it could build a similar SAF plant. The facilities would use similar technology but draw from different feedstocks, such as local forest or agricultural waste, and different types of hydrogen. The plan in Louisiana is to produce blue hydrogen, which involves capturing carbon emissions and is eligible for a federal tax credit. That Louisiana facility has also expanded in size, and Chaput says it could ultimately produce 195-200mn USG/yr of fuel — up from estimates last year and an initial projection of 120mn USG/yr. Chaput says the plant's size — which would give it the highest capacity of all Fischer-Tropsch SAF plants planned globally according to Argus estimates — will be an advantage for ultimately producing a cost-competitive fuel. Other potential DG Fuels facilities would be similarly large, a different approach from some other US developers like Aether Fuels, Natural State Renewables and now-defunct Fulcrum Bioenergy that have eyed a similar production process on smaller sites. Some biofuel producers already operational today use a separate process to produce SAF, hydroprocessing vegetable oils and animal fats, and have higher production capacities. But that pathway could ultimately be limited by feedstock constraints and competition from renewable diesel, analysts say, which has spurred investors and airlines to look at other potential pathways. While plants eyeing production in the 2030s might be less exposed to immediate policy risks, biofuel producers in the US have struggled to start 2025 as margins crash from the halting rollout of a new federal tax credit and delayed blend mandates. President Donald Trump's aggressive efforts to curb renewables have scared climate tech start-ups, though Trump has also voiced general support for some other clean energy sources, including biofuels. A government loan to support US refiner Calumet's efforts to produce more SAF was briefly halted this year and then [unpaused]( https://direct.argusmedia.com/newsandanalysis/article/2656961) after a Republican US senator intervened. And policies abroad — including increasingly stringent SAF mandates in the EU and UK — could ultimately support clean fuel developers in the US even if incentives shift stateside. By Cole Martin Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

Brazil's 2025-26 sugar crop to near record 46mn t

29/04/25

Brazil's 2025-26 sugar crop to near record 46mn t

Sao Paulo, 29 April (Argus) — Brazil may produce a record amount of sugar in the 2025-26 sugarcane crop despite lower crushing because more feedstock is set for the sweetener's production instead of ethanol. Brazil is set to produce 45.9mn metric tonnes (t) of sugar in the 2025-26 crop — which officially started on 1 April — a 4pc increase from the prior season, according to national supply company Conab's first estimate for the cycle. But Conab expects 2025-26 sugarcane crushing to decrease by 2pc from the the prior season, because of unfavorable weather conditions in the months prior to the beginning of the crop. The center-south — responsible for 90pc of national output — was hit by lack of rainfalls and high temperatures in most of last year, harming the development and growing of crops which would be harvested in the current cycle. The planted sugarcane area is expected to reach 8.8mn hectares (ha), a slight 0.3pc rise from the prior cycle, but yields are estimated to decrease by 2.3pc to 75,450 kg/ha. The annual increase in sugar output came because international sugar prices became more attractive than domestic ethanol prices. Both products are derived from sugarcane and production of one occurs at the expense of the other. Additionally, Brazilian mills increased investments on sugar crystallizing capacity last year and market participants expect the results to materialize this season. Ethanol output to fall Brazil will produce 36.8bn l (635,180 b/d) of ethanol in the 2025-26 crop, a 1pc drop from the 2024-25 season, driven by less sugarcane-based ethanol, Conab said. Sugarcane ethanol output is estimated to drop by 4.2pc from the prior cycle, because of less available feedstock and an estimated higher share of sugarcane directed to sugar production instead of the biofuel. But a projected 11pc increase in corn-based ethanol production in the 2025-26 season from the previous cycle partially offsets that expected drop in sugarcane ethanol output. Hydrous ethanol production in the 2025-26 season is estimated to total 22.7bn l, a 6.8pc decrease from 24.4bn l in the 2024-25 crop, while output of anhydrous ethanol — used as a gasoline blendstock — may rise by 10pc to 14.1bn l. By Maria Albuquerque Projections for 2025-26 sugarcane crop 2024-25 2025-26 ±% Sugarcane ('000t) 676.96 663.43 -2 Sugar '000t 44.12 45.87 4 Sugarcane-based ethanol ('000l) 29,350,340 28,111,241 -4.2 Corn-based ethanol ('000l) 7,839,526 8,704,034 11 Ethanol total ('000l) 37,189,865 36,815,275 -1 Source: Conab Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

Trump return complicates climate talks: Cop 30 head

29/04/25

Trump return complicates climate talks: Cop 30 head

New York, 29 April (Argus) — This year's UN Cop 30 climate talks will proceed with a key goal of scaling up climate finance, but US president Donald Trump's disruptive return to the White House has made efforts to reduce emissions more challenging, according to the Brazilian official leading the summit. Continuing the fight to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions "is going to be a slightly uphill battle, but I think it's the right one," Brazil climate secretary and Cop 30 president André Corrêa Do Lago said Tuesday at the BNEF Summit in New York City. "The international context could help a little more", Corrêa Do Lago said, drawing laughter from the audience. Trump moved quickly after beginning his second term to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement, an exit that will formally take effect in January 2026. He has started to impede US development of renewable energy projects he sees as boondoggles, but he is facing challenges to his attempts to halt government funding and tax credits for the sector. It is unclear if the US will send a delegation to the Cop 30 summit this year, which is scheduled to take place in Belem, Brazil, in November. Corrêa Do Lago said that invitations have not yet been sent to prospective participants. He also made a distinction between the US government and others in the US, including state and businesses leaders, that have pledged to continue supporting GHG emissions reductions even as the Trump administration moves to boost oil and gas. Publicly, countries have not changed their tune on climate in response to the US policy shifts. But Corrêa Do Lago said that privately there are "some that say, ‘God, how am I going to convince my people that I have to try to lower emissions if the richest country in the world is not doing the same?'" Corrêa Do Lago said that this year's summit needs to focus less on technical negotiations over documents that might never be implemented as a result, and more about making an economic appeal for decarbonization and hosting more of a "Cop of solutions, a Cop of action". He reiterated the Brazilian government's goal of increasing climate financing for developing countries from the target set at Cop 29 of $300bn/yr by 2035 to the far higher target of $1.3 trillion/yr. By Cole Martin Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

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