Turkey to start slow with 0.5% biodiesel blending mandate in 2018

In Turkey, the government has mandated a 0.5% biodiesel blend as of early 2018 that will boost current voluntary blending towards increasing consumption of domestic production that is currently well below production capacity. Only 70,000 metric tons of biodiesel was produced last year against installed capacity of 235,000 tons but introduction of the mandate should boost biodiesel consumption 50% to 115,000 tons. Biodiesel blending will also translate to reduced excise tax payments. Biodiesel feedstocks domestically are primarily from agricultural waste and waste vegetable oil.