Port of Rotterdam biofuels review and outlook for year ahead

Ronald Backers, advisor business intelligence, Port of Rotterdam, looks back at how the strategic port has been dealing with biofuels’ logistics over the past 12 months. Two years ago I paraphrased the Beatles ‘It was 20 years ago today’, referring to the birth of Directive 2003/30/EC and the push for biofuels blending in the European Union in 2003. Today, I would like to use the words of a Bob Dylan song: “Hard times, hard times, come again no more.” The connection to Rotterdam is clear:  three projects were stopped because of the hard times: these were Shell’s partly constructed biofuels plant, UPM’s already delayed investment decision and bp’s project which was in the FEED stage. They all had their own specific reasons for this decision, which we, of course, regret. There are also some bright spots on the horizon: we are seeing higher quantities of advanced feedstocks such as spent bleaching earth oil, cashew nut shell oil, empty palm fruit...