Legislators in Argentina have recently established a new government mandate on all diesel used within the country – in order to qualify for consumption all diesel fuel must contain at least 5% biomass in order to offset the current petroleum fuel demand and reduce overall carbon emissions. Many experts believe that in order to meet this demand Argentina will need to supply its oil companies with 700,000 to 900,000 tons of biodiesel a year, no small figure in light of overall fuel consumption.

For Argentina, however, this target is not so unobtainable. In fact, in 2009 alone Argentina was able to produce over 1.2 million tons of biodiesel, while estimates put this year’s total in the 1.6 to 2.2 million ton range. This balance of both high demand mandated by the government as well as high production has helped spark a number of new biodiesel development initiatives domestically as well as internationally, with Argentina opening its doors more freely to foreign biomass producers such as Glencore, Louis Dreyfus and Vicentin.

Utilizing its vast amount of rich farmland, Argentina is already the number one soybean oil provider in the world and one of the world leaders in biodiesel production. This further initiative will only work to strengthen Argentina’s standings in the world market as well as provide a good market example for other countries to follow in their wake should they be successful.

The only question now remains as to whether and when many of the highly-developed industrial nations around the world will adopt a similar strategy in order to reduce their own dependence upon foreign petroleum and reduce their own carbon emissions thanks to standard diesel usage. While it’s true that a highly diesel-dependent nation such as the United States could not run entirely on biodiesel due to the overall nationwide high usage a mixture would still allow for much greater improvements over current trends. Realizing this many petroleum companies such as Pacific Pride that provide a large amount of diesel regularly have already begun mixing biodiesel into their own products, however an actual regulation mandating the usage of such mixtures is still yet to be seen.

Still, should Argentina’s development prove successful and production be stepped up accordingly it would be no surprise to see greater reliance upon biofuels and biofuel blends around the world in order to supplement regular diesel dependence.

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