VERBIO pursues North American expansion with purchase of Canadian biodiesel plant

VERBIO Group subsidiary VERBIO Diesel Canada has completed the purchase of a biodiesel plant located in Dain City, Ontario, Canada.

Previously announced in May, the purchase agreement was signed between VERBIO and Atlantic Biodiesel, subject to various conditions, which have now been satisfied.

The biodiesel plant has an annual capacity of approximately 150,000 tonnes of biodiesel and 18,000 tonnes of raw glycerine. Operations are expected to resume in August 2019.

"The German biofuels market currently offers insufficient prospects for further growth due to the political environment, which is why we have been expanding into Asia and North America for some time now,” said Theodor Niesmann, CEO of VERBIO.

“The purchased biodiesel plant has good technical prerequisites for the implementation of our technology. We also take over an experienced team that has already operated the plant in the past. Logistically, the good connection to the railway infrastructure is an advantage. This allows both raw materials and end products to be transported efficiently and cost-effectively. The overall package convinced us and made us decide to buy.

"We are certain that Dain City is a very good starting point for our expansion into the North American biodiesel market. The North American biodiesel market has an annual demand of about 9 million tonnes – and rising. This opens up a promising strategic and economic perspective for VERBIO in order to promote internationalisation and become more independent of the ups and downs of the European biofuels market,” he concluded.

With the purchase of this new plant in Canada, VERBIO’s total biodiesel production capacity has increased to approximately 620,000 tonnes per year.