Yesterday, France's largest farmers' association called for blocking oil refineries using palm oil as a raw material for biodiesel production.
In May, France's authorities granted oil and gas group Total permission to process palm oil in the La Mede biofuel refinery. This resulted in a national protest storm of farmers and environmental activists.
France is Europe's largest producer of oilseeds such as rapeseed, which are also processed into biodiesel. Palm oil, however, is cheaper and the competition that the French farmers have to face is unfair.
Palm oil is widely criticized in Europe for promoting the logging of vast forest areas in Southeast Asia. Some lawyers in Europe demand the use of domestic raw materials increase; there are problems in the EU to fulfill the Paris Climate Agreement.
From the 10th of June onwards, according to the presentation of the Farmers' Association throughout France, the installations in question will be blocked. Farmers are also concerned about EU talks with the Mercosur states in South America. It is feared that more and cheap agricultural commodities should be imported from there.
Total reported that the La Mede plant processes around 300,000 tonnes of crude palm oil per year. The total annual capacity is given as 650,000 tons. Other raw materials that are used there are rapeseed, sunflower seed and corn.
Text: HANSA Derivatives Trading GmbH /
