German biodiesel exports up slightly over last year
In the first six months of 2017, German biodiesel exports slightly exceeded the previous year's figures. More specifically, Denmark and Great Britain purchased more biodiesel from German production. By contrast, demand from the U.S. slumped.
In the first half year of 2017, total German biodiesel exports climbed 13.7 percent to 720,000 metric tons (216 million gallons) compared to the 2016 reference period. About 93 percent of these exports went to other EU-28 countries.
The top purchaser of German biodiesel continued to be the Netherlands, with imports rising 8 percent to 291,000 tons (87.4 million gallons). Poland remained in second place, importing a constant quantity of 89,000 tons (26.7 million gallons). Many other EU-28 countries raised imports from Germany, Agrarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft (mbH) reported. Exports to Great Britain experienced the biggest increase by 244 percent. However, Denmark, Switzerland and France also imported significantly more.
Exports of German biodiesel to the U.S. sagged to 61 tons (18,300 gallons), virtually coming to a standstill. The slump was due to the fact that soybean supply to the U.S. market was sufficient and the euro was firm, making commodities from the EU-28 more expensive abroad. Sweden and Norway also reduced imports by on average 50 percent.