Exports and imports

Japan is a net importer of ethanol, including bioethanol to produce bio-ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE), industrial ethanol, ethanol for other purposes and bio-ETBE.

In 2022, almost 1.9 billion liters of bio-ETBE were imported from the U.S. In addition, the country imported 70.9 million liters of bioethanol from Brazil as feedstock for domestic bio-ETBE production.

Before 2019, all imported bio-ETBE from the U.S, was produced from Brazil’s sugarcane-based ethanol. In 2019, up to 44% of bio-ETBE could be produced from U.S. corn-based ethanol. The figure below shows Japan’s ethanol imports in 2011-2022.

Note: including bioethanol imported in the form of bio-ETBE