Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan will raise concerns about fraudulent biofuel imports at a key European Union committee on Tuesday.
There are growing fears that biofuel suppliers from China and other countries are passing virgin palm oil off as legitimate fuel in breach of EU regulations, hitting the union’s own producers’ ability to compete with them.
Mr Ryan plans to raise the issue at Tuesday’s meeting of the bloc’s Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council in a bid to give indigenous biofuel suppliers a level playing pitch across the EU.
Several other member states, including Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, will back the Irish Minister’s call for the European Commission to examine imported biofuels, to ensure that transport businesses are assured that the fuels they are using are legitimate and sustainable, according to a statement.
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Fears have been growing in the Irish industry and elsewhere that suppliers have been relabelling virgin palm oil, which the EU does not class as sustainable, as other substances that the bloc regards as legitimate biofuels.
Disproportionate growth in supplies of palm oil mill effluent, a byproduct, and processed waste cooking oil, prompted suspicions of fraud in recent years. Certifying bodies recognised by the EU have refused to endorse fuels coming from some producers.
Irish agri business group Clonbio, which produces biofuel from grain, among other products, and is a key player in the EU market, was among those that raised concerns in the Republic and at European level.
The group recently highlighted weaknesses in the Republic’s own systems that showed the State imported millions of litres of fuel made from palm oil mill effluent from China, even though that country does not produce palm oil in the first place, and therefore could not have produced fuel made from its waste.
Mr Ryan will call on the European Commission to further investigate concerns about palm oil mill effluent and other derivatives and then to take appropriate steps to monitor and regularise the sector.
“EU member states and fuel suppliers rely upon the assurance of the European oversight regime for quality sustainable biofuels,” the Minister said.
He added that while the EU had taken significant steps to limit the impact on forests of palm oil production there were still concerns about the level of palm oil waste products used in biofuel.
“Such concerns can only be appropriately assessed and addressed at EU level,” Mr Ryan stressed.
Palm oil is widely used by the global food industry, but its producers have cleared rainforests in southeast Asia to make way for palm plantations, damaging the environment, climate and biodiversity.
While waste from its production can be used as fuel, the process is expensive. Consequently, the supposed growth in the use of this waste has sparked suspicions that some producers are passing palm oil off as legitimate biofuel.
Rapidly rising rates of used cooking oil collection and processing in some countries have also led to fears of fraud,
The Republic’s Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation requires oil companies to ensure that 17 per cent of the motor fuel they sell is renewable, that is, biodiesel or bioethanol.
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