Statoil’s goal is to become a significant provider of sustainable biofuels with a global production and trading position, and be in a first mover position in our retail markets. Statoil started sales of biofuels as long ago as 1999, and today we have sales in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. In total, we sell biofuels at more than 1300 stations.

Biofuels represent the largest near-term possibility of decreasing CO₂ emissions from the transportation sector. Biofuels have the advantage of being easily integrated into the established infrastructure for petroleum fuels thereby facilitating introduction. Today’s most common biofuels, ethanol and biodiesel are possible to blend to current fuels and utilize in existing vehicles.

More and more countries worldwide are developing biofuel programmes and implementing mandates for biofuel usage. The European Union has a target of replacing 10 % of transportation fuels with renewable fuels in 2020 and the United States has targets of producing and using 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022.

Statoil has an ownership in the Mestilla biodiesel facility in Lithuania and are working actively to further develop our position in production of biofuels. We are fully aware of the environmental and societal challenges associated with production of biofuels. We are working actively to prevent damage to biodiversity, ecosystems and areas of high conservation value and emphasise the greenhouse gas accounts in a life cycle perspective.