The Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy recently reported record-high ethanol exports in 2008. A total of 1.365 billion gallons of ethanol was exported by Brazil in 2008, a 45% increase over its 2007 exports. The average selling price was about US$1.78 per gallon (or 0.47 US cents per liter), a 16% increase over the 2007 selling price. The United States is still the major ethanol importing customer in 2008, with imports of 470 million gallons (about 2.8 billion liters). Other highlights of the report, according to the Checkbiotech website are: (1) In the Brazilian domestic market, an increase in ethanol consumption for 2009 is expected, and this is attributed to the “increasing number of flexible-fuel cars in the Brazilian fleet," (2) the blending of biodiesel in regular diesel (from 2% biodiesel blend in the first half of 2008 to 3% in the second half) resulted in a reduction of petroleum diesel imports by 1.1 billion liters, or a savings of US$ 976 million..