U.S. Biofuel Makers Say EU Tariff Could Kill Exports
by Climate Weekly – March 17, 2009
Biofuel makers in the United States are fearful that the European Union's anti-dumping tariffs could mean they won't be able to ship their alternative fuels there and instead will have to focus on domestic and other global markets, Reuters reported March 13.
Calling the tariff "largely uneconomical," the president of Innovation Fuels, which is based in New York, said developing markets within the United States have helped soften the blow of having to slow the company's biofuel exports to Europe.
Beginning on March 13, the EU mandated that U.S. exporters would have to pay up to 29 percent more in anti-dumping tariffs for an initial six months. The EU will evaluate whether to impose "definitive duties" on exports that would last at least five years, The Guardian reported.
Tariff to Weed Out American Competition?
Biofuels Corp., Britian's largest biodiesel plant, has said that U.S.-based biofuel producers have had an unfair advantage that has forced it to run below capacity, Reuters reported. Currently, U.S. blenders get a $1 credit for mixing a gallon of alternative fuel into conventional diesel. U.S. producers, which make their products mainly from soy, say the tariff will hurt European consumers because European biodiesal makers use more expensive rapeseed oil to produce their biofuels.