EU Biodiesel Group Airs
Concern About Untaxed Imports
From U.S.
The European Union biodiesel industry said it suspects U.S. competitors are exporting a new blend to Europe to avoid EU tariffs that halted traditional shipments worth $1 billion a year.
The European Biodiesel Board said U.S. exporters of the biofuel, made from vegetable oils and animal fats for use in diesel engines, may have started shipping a blend not covered by the duties. The EU, the world’s biggest biodiesel market, imposed provisional levies in March and five-year measures in July to counter U.S. subsidies and price undercutting.
“We are worried about trade that may undermine the effect of the duties,” Amandine Lacourt, project manager at the Brussels-based EBB, said today by telephone. The group is working with European trade authorities on the matter and a possible outcome is that the EU widens the scope of the levies, which target pure biodiesel and blends with more than 20 percent biodiesel, to cover blends with less than that amount, she said.
The import duties highlight tensions accompanying EU and U.S. efforts to expand global trade in biofuels, a renewable energy from crops such as rapeseed, corn, wheat and sugar. Ethanol is another kind of biofuel.
The EU decided last year to require at least 10 percent of land-transport energy in each member country to come from renewable sources led by biofuels beginning in 2020. This is part of a goal of more than doubling the overall share of renewable energy in the EU to an average 20 percent.
Imports Drop
The European Commission, the 27-nation EU’s trade authority, is aware of the concerns about untaxed imports from the U.S. after member countries raised the issue, said spokesman Lutz Guellner. He declined to elaborate.
EU imports of the U.S. biodiesel covered by the duties have fallen to almost zero since April. Imports totaled 6.3 metric tons between April and August this year compared with 815,436 tons during the same five-month period in 2008, according to Eurostat, the EU statistics agency.
The EU imposed the duties as high as 237 euros ($351) a ton on U.S. producers such as Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Cargill Inc. after their share of the European market rose to 17.2 percent -- or 1.14 million tons -- in the 12 months through March 2008 from 0.1 percent in 2004. Those imports were worth 700 million euros in the 12 months through March 2008.
“It’s a matter of survival for European producers to have these measures in place given the market distortions caused by the U.S.,” Lacourt said.
Around 140,000 tons of U.S. biodiesel in the form of blends not covered by the duties have entered the EU since April, she said, citing data from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
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