UFOP: EU Oilseed Producers Lose in Argentina Imports Settlement

Agriculture/Food Processing Residues nonfield crop, Argentina, Business News/Analysis, European Union (EU), Feedstocks, Field/Orchard/Plantation Crops/Residues, Germany, Indonesia, Marketing/Market Forces and Sales, Not Agriculture, Opinions, Policy, Sustainability

February 6, 2019

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(Union for the Promotion of Oil and Protein Plants (UFOP)/Biodiesel Magazine) According to Germany’s Union for the Promotion of Oil and Protein Plants (UFOP), European oilseed producers are the losers in the Jan. 30 decision of the representatives of the EU member states in the Trade Defense Instruments Committee (TDI). The association criticizes the committee’s approval of the Argentine government’s proposal for a so-called “price undertaking” agreement, which will allow Argentina’s biodiesel producers to export around 1.2 million metric tons (approximately 360 million gallons) of biodiesel duty-free to the EU every year.

This amount of biodiesel accounts for 10 percent of total biodiesel consumption in the European Union. This market access is coupled with compliance with a minimum import price, which is to be calculated on the basis of monthly average soybean oil prices. The concrete and legally binding calculation procedure will be announced in the EU Official Journal. UFOP fears that as a result of the procedure for setting the minimum import price, which is not yet known in detail, market access will be ensured through a price level that will have an overall negative effect on the EU biodiesel price and consequently on oilseed producer prices. Biodiesel quantities that exceed this import quota are subject to company-specific countervailing duties between 25 and 33.4 percent.

In this context, UFOP refers to the pending case against Indonesia. Perhaps the agreement concluded with Argentina is a blueprint for an analogous agreement with the Indonesian government. READ MORE

Argentina and the EU settle dispute over biodiesel imports–UFOP: European oilseed producers are the losers (Union for the Promotion of Oil and Protein Plants)

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