Alternative fuel manufacturers experience huge losses after traditional fuel prices reached a five-year-minimum.
To stay competitive biodiesel manufacturers using vegetable and animal fats in their production had to reduce prices by 20 per cent. Wall Street influenced this industry as well. WilderHill index monitoring all the market players from solar panel to renewable energy manufacturers fell by 36 per cent after a three-year-peak reached last March.
Steven Boyd, a representative from Sun Coast Resources Inc., a Houston-based company, announced that manufacturers were almost being killed. Woody Eaton, CEO at Blue Ridge Biofuels, a manufacturing company engaged in biodiesel from vegetable oil production, shares that opinion. Gas stations owned by his company lowered prices from $4,15 to $3,29 per one gallon and it was not enough to compete with prices for regular diesel fuel of $2,93 per one gallon.
Manufacturers involved in their production corn as raw material experience similar problems. Low prices for corn led to a record level of bioethanol production however last October prices increased by 25 per cent that along with decreasing prices for fuel made production cost effectiveness lower.
There are no positive tendencies in gas use instead of diesel industry. Low price for gas is balanced by car re-equipment high cost. Trucks leading manufacturers such as Volvo, Freightliner and Mack forecast low demand for the trucks with natural gas equipment. 'We will just wait for a little bit and see what is going to be with prices for fuel in future', says Robert Kerrick, NGE sales manager at Freightliner.
