DGAP-News

CropEnergies grows in 3rd quarter and increases earnings forecast - Reduction of emissions required by European Commission only possible with secure basis for conventional biofuels - Seite 2

EU is to increase to 27 percent, no specific target for the transport
sector was defined. The burning of petrol and diesel especially in the
European road traffic emits approximately one billion tonnes of greenhouse
gases annually.

In the last few years, the European bioethanol industry was able to
increase the greenhouse gas savings of ethanol from regional crops to, on
average, approximately 70 percent by continuous improvements. Instead of
building on this progress, the draft of the European Commission proposes
decreasing the share of biofuels made from crops from 7 percent in 2021 to
a maximum of 3.8 percent in 2030. The share of certain alternative fuels,
however, is to increase step by step from 1.5 percent in 2021 to 6.8
percent in 2030. The European Commission ignores the continuing need for
research and development that is necessary to ensure the competitiveness of
alternative fuels as additional alternative to fossil fuels. There is
reason to fear that implementing the draft of the European Commission would
not lead to a decrease in fossil fuel use, but only to a decrease in the
use of highly efficient biofuels which are already on the market.

To prevent this, CropEnergies, together with national and European
associations, campaigns for a growing share of renewable fuels in the
transport sector. A development of alternative fuels can only be achieved
in addition to - not instead of - already established biofuel made from
regional crops.

The report for the first nine months of the financial year 2016/17 can be
downloaded from the CropEnergies website.


CropEnergies AG

Ensuring mobility in a climate friendly way - today and in the future - is
CropEnergies' business. Founded in Mannheim, Germany, in 2006, the member
of the Südzucker Group is one of the leading European manufacturers of
sustainably produced bioethanol today. With its annual capacity of 1.3
million cubic meters of bioethanol, CropEnergies produces bioethanol which
predominantly replaces petrol in four modern production facilities in
Germany, Belgium, the UK, and France. The highly efficient production
facilities reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 70 percent on average
across the whole value-added chain compared to fossil fuel.

In addition to fuel alcohol, CropEnergies also produces 150,000 cubic
meters of high-purity neutral alcohol which is used in the cosmetics,
pharmaceutical, and beverage industry or for technical applications. At the
same time, CropEnergies is an important producer of food and animal feed
products. The raw materials which are used such as cereals and sugar beets