Ethanol exports to China soaring

There has been a significant increase in ethanol exports to China, the largest market for food and farm products from the United States, thanks to a 2014 trade mission, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Ethanol exports to China have jumped from $8 million to more than $86 million since the 2014 visit, according to the USDA. Representatives of nine state departments of agriculture and 28 U.S. companies traveled to northeast China that May to explore opportunities for trade in the region.

'Our objective for every trade mission is to create new markets for farm products made in rural America,” said Michael Scuse, USDA under secretary for farm and foreign agricultural services, in a news release. 'In October, we exported more ethanol to China than in the previous 10 years combined.”

Scuse led the delegation to promote U.S. agriculture and explore the role that renewable fuels could play in China's long-term clean energy strategy. The delegation met with gasoline companies, fuel blenders, oil companies, commodity traders and government officials to promote the benefits of using higher ethanol blends.

The United States exported 32.5 million gallons of ethanol to China, valued at $57 million, or 46 percent of total U.S. ethanol exports in October. Previous U.S. exports of ethanol to China averaged less than $3 million annually from 2005 to 2014.

U.S. agricultural exports to China have tripled over the last decade, accounting for nearly 20 percent of all foreign sales of U.S. farm products.

Exports of ethanol fuel in 2014 reached their second-highest level at a total of 826 million gallons. That level was second only to the 1.2 billion gallons exported during 2011 and 33 percent more than exports of fuel ethanol in 2013.

In the United States, ethanol is primarily used as a blending component in the production of motor (typically blended in volumes up to 10 percent ethanol).