Biofuels Plants Come And Go In Europe

The Finnish companies Neste Oil and Stora Enso have dropped plans to jointly build a wood-based biodiesel plant in Europe because of the project’s poor economics. They say they will continue to work together on other biobased chemicals. Meanwhile, the U.K.’s Ensus is due to restart its 400 million-L-per-year bioethanol plant in Wilton, England, after mothballing it for 15 months. The $450 million plant ferments grain. Ensus says the restart follows closure of a loophole in the European Union’s tariff system that had allowed imports of subsidized U.S. ethanol to distort the market.