BERLIN: German biodiesel exports in 2016 reached 1.54 million metric tons (approximately 463 million gallons), up 3.4 percent from 2015, according to figures from the German Federal Statistics Office and Germany’s Union for the Promotion of Oil and Protein Plants (UFOP).
Despite the increase in German biodiesel exports in 2016, biodiesel exports still fell short of the record of 1.71 million tons (514 million gallons) set in 2014.
EU member states continue to be key recipients of Germany’s biodiesel, taking in around 87 percent of the country’s exports. The Netherlands and Poland topped the list as the largest importers of German biodiesel last year; both countries received significantly more biodiesel than a year earlier. French imports from Germany dropped 53 percent, however, but Spain and Finland imported much more last year than in 2015.
According to the government figures, U.S. imports of German biodiesel were topped only by those of the Netherlands and Poland, reaching 85,000 tons (25.5 million gallons)—nearly seven times the volume imported in 2015.
While German biodiesel exports rose 3.4 percent in 2016, its imports spiked by roughly 38 percent to 718,000 tons (216 million gallons), the largest amount imported into Germany since 2012. Product from the Netherlands jumped 87 percent to 248,000 tons (74 million gallons). Imports from Malaysia reached 129,000 tons (39 million gallons), nearly matching the volume from 2015.
