Petrotec resumes production in small spark of hope for German biodiesel industry

In Germany, Petrotec, said it will restart production in January at waste vegetable oil biodiesel plants in Suedlohn-Oeding and Emden. The plants were on hiatus as of October due to slow order volume.

Earlier this month, the German government presented its long-range biofuels strategy, saying that they had brokered agreement between the auto, oil and farm sectors who are backing the plan.

Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel announced that Germany who set a target of 10 percent of its fuel needs coming from biofuels by 2010, reaching 20 percent by 2020 through the introduction of next-generation biofuels.

Agriculture Minister Horst Seehofer said that discussion was still underway on a proposed tax increase on biofuels that will take effect in January. The previous tax increase in January 2007 reduced the German biodiesel industry to producing at 20 percent of capacity as it could not compete with foreign imports.

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