Germany saw a sharp rise in biodiesel exports over the first nine months of 2017. Demand from Denmark and Great Britain was particularly dynamic.

Between January and September 2017, German biodiesel exports climbed around 11 percent to 1.16 million metric tons (348 million gallons). Roughly 94 percent was shipped to EU-28 countries. This was up 16 percent from the previous year. The biggest recipient of German biodiesel was the Netherlands with imports seeing a 1.5 percent rise to 428,000 tons. Demand from Poland continued to climb strongly. Taking 189,000 tons, the country was the second largest purchaser.

According to information published by Agrarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft (mbH), many other EU countries also raised their imports from Germany. Denmark boosted its imports 183 percent to 78,146 tons, outstripping France to move to third place. Exports to Great Britain were particularly dynamic, rocketing 276 percent. France, Austria and Switzerland also imported clearly more biodiesel than in the same period a year earlier. By contrast, exports to the U.S. continued to decline, falling 99.7 percent to 89 tons. The reasons were the country's political focus on domestic production from soybean oil and the firm euro that drove up prices for EU commodities in non-euro countries. Norway's orders for biodiesel dropped on average 55 percent in terms of quantity.

The Union zur Förderung von Oel- und Proteinpflanzen (UFOP) stated that the German biodiesel industry’s export strength was a key factor in stabilizing demand for rapeseed oil, as biodiesel from rapeseed was being more and more replaced by biodiesel from waste oils. The association pointed out that domestic consumption of rapeseed biodiesel (RME) dropped from 1.3 million tons in 2015 to 0.86 million tons in the quota year 2016. UFOP estimated RME sales for 2017 at about the same volume, although the greenhouse gas reduction quota was raised from 3.5 to 4 percent.