Biodiesel makes up for dropping ethanol figures in Rotterdam

The throughput of biofuels product has increased by 24% at the Port of Rotterdam last year.

The level rose to 5.9 million tonnes compared to 2011 and is mainly attributed to an increase in biodiesel handling. Both its import and export volumes increased by a total of 1.5 million tonnes.

In contrast, the throughput of ethanol dropped by 17% to 1.4 million tonnes and that of ETBE dropped by 8% to 600,000 tonnes.

The largest share of the incoming biodiesel, about 900,000 tonnes, came from Asian countries like Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, plus a substantial amount from Argentina.

The throughput of ethanol dropped to 1.4 million tonnes in 2012. The port believes that was largely caused by a change in the amount discharged from the US, which fell by more than a third after the import tariff for E90 was adjusted. More ethanol was seen from France however, where export increased by 100,000 tonnes.