Argentina's biodiesel industry hopes to resume exports to Europe in October following an unexpected delay in reopening the market that will cost millions of dollars in lost revenue.
"Deals worth a total of $20mn had already been sealed and had to be canceled," said Gustavo Idigoras, a biofuels analyst who works as a consultant for Argentinian biodiesel chamber Carbio.
Last week, a European Union committee put off a planned vote that was set to reopen what was once Argentina's most lucrative market for its soybean-based biofuel, after Buenos Aires successfully overturned EU anti-dumping duties through a complaint to the World Trade Organization.
"This European measure reveals a protectionist move to keep the market closed with illegal and arbitrary arguments that harm Argentina," Carbio president Luis Zubizarreta said.
The vote was postponed because a similar case involving Indonesian biodiesel is still pending at the WTO.
"An administrative mistake by the EU has created clear financial damage" to Argentinian biodiesel companies, Idigoras said.
In November 2013, the EU imposed biodiesel import duties of 22pc-25.7pc on the Argentinian biofuel and launched a years-long trade battle that effectively closed the South American country's most important market and decimated the sector.
In October last year, the WTO slapped down an appeal from the EU and confirmed an earlier ruling that favored Argentina in the dispute. Earlier, the General Court of the EU ruled that the biodiesel duties violate EU regulation on anti-dumping.
The EU and Argentina had agreed to 10 August as a reasonable date to implement the WTO ruling.
Argentina's foreign ministry has said the tariffs cost the country exports worth almost $1.6bn/yr.
The EU representatives are expected to vote on reopening the European doors to Argentinian biodiesel on 7 September, meaning the earliest that exports could resume would be October.
For now, the Argentinian biodiesel sector is taking a wait-and-see approach, aware that any official complaint to the WTO on the delay of implementing its ruling would take at least six months.
"We are not planning any concrete action just yet," said Zubizarreta.
The delay in resuming exports to Europe comes as the sector is also defending itself against dumping accusations in the US and Peru, the two countries that emerged as the main buyers of the country's biofuel after the EU implemented the anti-dumping tariffs.
Argentina exported 733,496t of biodiesel in the first six months of 2017, a 24pc increase from the 589,695t that were sold abroad in the January-June period last year, according to the government's Indec statistics agency.
With the exception of 7,000t that were sent to Peru in January, the rest of 2017 biodiesel exports went to the US.
