EU Biofuel Plan Increases Risk of Fraudulent Imports from Asia: Study

by Sean Goulding Carroll (EURACTIV) EU proposals aimed at cutting transport emissions risk boosting the amount of fraudulent used cooking oil (UCO) imported into the EU, according to a new study by the International Council for Clean Transportation (ICCT), a US-based non-profit organisation.

The study, published on Tuesday (22 February), compares UCO collection and domestic use rates in six Asian countries to the quantities in demand for export.

The findings cast doubt on Asian countries’ ability to meet the future demand prompted by tabled EU legislation, increasing the risk that restricted feedstocks, such as virgin palm oil, will be illicitly used to bulk up UCO quantities.

“Already most of the growing UCO biodiesel production in China is driven by demand for UCO biodiesel in the European Union, and the demand stems from policy incentives under the Renewable Energy Directive,” states the report.

Demand for UCO is expected to soar in the coming years, as the EU turns in part to waste-based biofuels to wean the transport sector off fossil fuels.

Policy proposals put forward as part of the European Commission’s “Fit for 55” package of climate laws would see biofuels derived from UCO blended with kerosene to cut aviation emissions, and used in ships to reduce the carbon footprint of the maritime sector.

However, the EU is incapable of producing enough UCO to satisfy the bloc’s demand, leading to high levels of importation. Around 68% of UCO imports in 2019 were from Asia and the United States.

The study focused on six major UCO exporting nations in Asia: China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, and the Republic of Korea.

Malaysia, a regional UCO hub, emerges as the country with the most noticeable discrepancy between the amount of biofuels in the country and the amount exported, which indicates possible fraud.

“Our study indicates that there’s a fraud risk with used cooking oil, and that indicates that there should be a cap in the ReFuelEU Aviation and the FuelEU Maritime regulations,” Chelsea Baldino, one of the study’s authors, told EURACTIV.

“Not only will that cap reduce the risk of fraud, but it also will help support the nascent technologies that we will need in the long term to decarbonise aviation and marine,” she added.

The ReFuelEU Aviation proposal would require aircraft refuelling in EU airports to uplift a set percentage of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) mixed with kerosene. This percentage would scale up over time.

While in the long-term much of the SAF requirement is expected to be met with renewable electro-fuels, SAF producers are likely to turn to UCO in the short term, an affordable feedstock capable of being refined into jet fuel using mature technology.

The European Waste-based and Advanced Biofuels Association (EWABA), rejected the recommendations by the ICCT, arguing that the proposed 1.7% limit on waste lipids in ReFuelEU Aviation is too high.

A lower limit, the trade association contends, will prevent the diversion of feedstocks from the road and maritime sectors, where UCO can be processed more efficiently and in which there is already an established market. A 1.7% limit will essentially push up emissions in the road and maritime sectors to more marginally cut emissions in the aviation sector, exacerbating the climate crisis, they argue.

However, when it comes to introducing a 1.7% limit for part B feedstocks in the Renewable Energy Directive and for FuelEU Maritime, EWABA argue that the figure is too restrictive. READ MORE