Avril shuts biodiesel plants as profits evaporate

Leading French biodiesel (RME) producer Groupe Avril has temporarily shut in an unspecified amount of its production as demand and profits dive, a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting movement restrictions.

Avril chief executive Jean-Philippe Puig said the firm has "only three plants currently in operation" out of six. Avril has yet to respond to questions over which plants have been shut. The firm has units at Bassens, Sete, two at Rouen, Lezoux and Le Meriot. Capacity is around 1.4mn t/yr.

Puig cited a fall of 60pc in diesel-powered vehicles on the roads this month, which has cut demand for biodiesel blending. The drop in the price of biodiesel has been sharp, but this has not been matched by a corresponding fall in the price of rapeseed oil, making biodiesel production uneconomic. "The prices are catastrophic and are at a level where we should stop everything. We have had prices drop below zero," he said.

Puig says biodiesel orders for April into May have also declined sharply.

Avril is also a major rapeseed crusher and vegetable oil producer, but its volumes of rapeseed oil destined for production of biodiesel are now lying spare. "We are trying to find outlets to export the oil," said Puig. The company has looked at trying to export cargoes to China, according to Puig.

Avril has already said that a 250,000 t/yr biodiesel train at its plant in Rouen — one of two similar-sized units at the plant — would not be brought back on stream yet, following a fire in March.

The rise in imports of biodiesel in France has been a long term issue for the company. It prompted Avril to look to either offload plants or attract partners into its domestic biodiesel production last year. In November it said it had posted losses of €133mn ($145mn) in three years at its biodiesel division.

By Adam Porter