The global biodiesel market has shown an exponential growth in production and trade across the past decade. Nowadays, more biodiesel than ever before is sourced from abroad and procurement areas -especially of large scale producers and traders - span the globe. While this trend is bound to continue, markets and trade developments are still strongly linked to support and trade policies.



Furthermore, the biodiesel industry is strongly linked to other sectors (agriculture and mineral oil industry in particular) and faces significant market disturbances some of which have led to various inefficiencies in the past. Due to the pace of this market development, a methodological assessment and understanding of the numerous influencing factors was needed to reduce uncertainties and risks for those involved. A recently published analysis by Ecofys and the Copernicus Institute, Utrecht University (see Lamers et al. [1]) provided such an analysis. It evaluates how the interaction of domestic policies steered global trade streams towards different markets, in particular in connection to underlying trade policies and additional market forces, over the past decade. It provides robust data on international production and trade volumes which have already served as input to the recently published Special Report on Renewable Energy (SRREN) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [2]. This market brochure was commissioned by UFOP to build upon the methodologies and findings of Lamers et al. [1] and to provide a picture of the global biodiesel market in 2010/2011.