By Robert Harvey
LONDON (Reuters) -Global commodity trader Trafigura’s UK-based biofuel producer and fuel distributor Greenergy will begin a consultation with employees to close its biodiesel plant in Immingham, northeastern England, it said on Thursday.
Around 60 jobs will be subject to the consultation process, a spokesperson told Reuters.
It would mark the latest blow for Britain’s fuel industry, a week after the nearby Lindsey oil refinery’s owner Prax announced insolvency, putting 420 jobs at risk.
Greenergy shut down the plant and placed it under strategic review at the end of May, citing “unsupportive” market conditions despite “implementing significant cost reduction measures”.
The company acquired by Trafigura last year, said slower increases in UK biofuels mandates compared to European countries, as well as competition from U.S. exports, had negatively impacted the plant.
“In light of continuing market pressures, we unfortunately do not have enough certainty on the outlook for UK biofuels policy to make the substantial investments required to create a competitive operation at Immingham,” Greenergy CEO Adam Traeger said.
Greenergy’s Immingham plant supplies around a quarter of the UK’s biodiesel production, and is one of three that the company operates alongside its facilities in Teesside, UK, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Biodiesel plants such as Greenergy’s at Immingham convert waste oils into biodiesel, which is then blended into the conventional diesel to displace some fossil fuel in the road fuel mix and help curb emissions.
(Reporting by Robert Harvey; editing by Barbara Lewis)
