Glycerine overview Transcript
Glycerine is a coproduct of the manufacture of fatty acids and fatty alcohols and also the trans-esterification process of biodiesel. These processes can involve either tallow or fats, which means that the upstream markets for glycerine are just those markets, they’ll be the fats, the oils, and including the biodiesel market where we watch the multi-feed-stock producers.
It’s part of the oleochemicals family that includes fatty acids and fatty alcohols, not biodiesel, that’s not an oleochemical. But it is crude glycerine that is of increasing importance in market in the US and that stems from the biodiesel production.
The uses for glycerine can be food uses, they can be construction uses or they can be agricultural uses. It is a ubiquitous product with over 1,000 end-uses in the markets. It is, in fact, a green product, it is not made through anything using petrochemicals and therefore is increasingly sought after for companies that want to green their profile as the bio-revolution continues in the US.