Bio-fuel ceased to be a hit

The production of automobile biofuels from corn and rape was a magnet for investors. It was just a couple of years ago that the European Union declared that it wanted to decrease dependence on imported oil and ordered refineries to mix biofuel into classic gasoline and petroleum, so that the more expensive bio-fuels wouldn't make tanking costlier. The union's member states aren't imposing consumer taxes on bio-fuels. Investment groups and strong food businesses saw a chance in the new business. Projects increased, a concern beginning whether the farmers would be able to grow enough crops for the planned factories. Today everything's different. Most projects are still on paper. And a part of the factories that were constructed are still without work. The Bratislava producer of plant oil Palma Group closed its Senkvice factory for the production of bio-oil - or differently put methyl rape oil. The investment group Slavia Capital, which controls the firm, since then has been producing the additive just in its Jihlava factory Agropodnik. Now there's a problem with MERO in Biotrend JPS, which is controlled by the Czech company Unocom. In Buzitka, not far from Lucenec, there's an unfinished factory for MERO production, unfinished because the banks stopped financing the construction. The minor co-owner of the firm, village mayor Stanislav Jacmenik, specifies that so far four million euros have been invested in it. They managed to construct the building, but for technologies it couldn't raise another ten million euros. There's also a problem in bio-fuel production abroad. In Austria's Linz, a factory partially owned by the banking group Raiffeisen, went into bankruptcy. Neither has the German Campa Biodiesel been able too keep ahold in this business. Their indebted factory in Ochsenfurt was bought by the multi-national oil group ADM. Several bioethanol factories are not doing better either, which produces from cereals and transfers into gasoline. One factory was abandoned in Hustopece, Czech Republic. Another Czech bioethanol factory in Vrdy in Vysocina was finished, but the owner left it the way it was. (author)