World Biofuel Leaders to OPEC: Who Are You Trying to Kid?

The world biofuels industry today issued a sharp rebuke to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its president, Chakib Khelil, today in the pages of the Financial Times.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) July 16, 2008 — The world biofuels industry today issued a sharp rebuke to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its president, Chakib Khelil, today in the pages of the Financial Times. In a full page ad, the biofuel industries of Brazil, Canada, Europe and the United States took the oil cartel to task for outrageous, misleading, and unsubstantiated claims about the role of ethanol in world oil markets. The biofuel trade associations’ ad pointed out the very real competition biofuels is proving to be for oil producers.
“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.

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Biofuels industry challenges OPEC view in FT advertisement

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.

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Disinformation Age

OPEC lies, the SUV dies.
By Clifford D. May

The folks over at OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, must think we’re pretty stupid. The other day, Chakib Khelil, the current OPEC president, asserted that “the intrusion of bioethanol on the market” is responsible for 40 percent of recent increases in the price of oil.

Now how exactly would that work? How does growing sugarcane in Brazil or corn in Iowa push up the price of oil sucked from holes in the ground in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela? If we roasted the corn and put the sugar in coffee — instead of making it into alcohol fuels — would oil prices go up less?

And if mixing a little ethanol in with gasoline has caused much of oil’s latest price rise, does it follow that replacing oil entirely with alternative fuels would result in even higher oil prices? By that logic, if everyone switched from Coca Cola to Kool-Aid, the price of a bottle of Coke would go up rather than down. (And if you believe that, “drinking the Kool-Aid” might be an apt description for what you’ve been up to.)

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