The European Union energy minister this week agreed to set a mandatory target of 10 per cent of petrol and diesel used in vehicles to come from biofuels by 2020, even though European biofuel producers are struggling with the economics of the industry after setbacks.

This month, Total, theFrench energy group, and Neste, the Finnish refiner with ambitions to become the biggest biodiesel refiner in Europe, abandoned plans to build a 200,000 tonnes-a-year biodiesel plant at Total's Dunkirk refinery. One reason was the technology.