EU extends import duties on US biodiesel to 2020

The European Union (EU) is extending the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties imposed on US biodiesel imports for another five years, the EU's official journal said on Tuesday.

The duties will now run until September 2020, according to a Reuters report.

The EU first set the duties in 2009 on several US producers of biodiesel, including Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill. In making the decision, the European Commission came to the conclusion that the US tax credit of $1/gal of biodiesel was harming European producers.

The measure effectively brought $1 billion in annual trade to a halt.

In its journal entry, the EU said it decided there was still a risk of harm if the duties were lifted. As such, the group chose to extend them.

The US-based National Biodiesel Board (NBB) says the decision is unfair because the tax incentive has since expired, thus meaning European biodiesel producers could receive the same benefit if their product was blended in the US.

"In fact, US imports of biodiesel from the EU have grown in recent years while EU imports of US biodiesel have been virtually eliminated since the EU duties were imposed," the NBB said in a statement.

The European Biodiesel Board (EBB), however, said a legislative package to extend the tax credit through 2016 meant the duties had to stay.

"Even though the tax credit kept expiring several times, the US authorities have established a tradition of reinstating the tax credit in a retroactive manner," the EBB's secretary-general Raffaello Garofalo said in a statement.