Spanish biodiesel consumption rose 22.4% on the year and 2.2% on the month to 98,669 mt in June, according to data released Monday by Spain's strategic oil reserves corporation CORES.
Ethanol consumption also grew both on the month and the year, up 1.0% and 7.0%, respectively ,to 21,808 mt in June.
Biodiesel sales rose less than diesel sales on the month but far outpaced them the year. Ethanol sales grew both on the month and year, in line with gasoline sales.
Diesel consumption in June rose 3.6% from May and 5.4% from June 2016 to 2.068 million mt.
This meant the biodiesel incorporation rate fell to 4.77% on a volume basis from 4.84% in May but rose from 4.11% in June 2016.
Gasoline consumption rose 7.5% on the month and 5.3% on the year to 438,959 mt in June. This meant the incorporation rate of 4.97% on a volume basis was down from 5.29% in May, but up from 4.89% in June 2016.
Consumption of biofuels in Spain is expected to grow over the course of 2017 due to the raising of the biofuels mandate to 5% from 4.3% on a volumetric basis from January 1.
As the Spanish market consumes more diesel than gasoline, the volume of biodiesel used is much greater than ethanol, but blending rate tends to be slightly lower due to the greater greenhouse gas savings offered.
In the first half of the year, the ethanol blending rate was 5.50%, up from 5.28% a year earlier, and the biodiesel blending rate has also risen over the same period, to 4.69% from 4.27%.
Biofuel blending has increased compared with previous years, but there is still some scope to grow, with only 4.82% of biofuel blended across both ethanol and biodiesel on a volume basis in H1, which is just below the 5% mandate.
