{"id":12670,"date":"2025-06-16T15:23:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T19:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2025\/06\/16\/us-deal-may-force-redcar-biofuel-plant-to-close-ensus-warns\/"},"modified":"2025-06-16T15:23:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T19:23:11","slug":"us-deal-may-force-redcar-biofuel-plant-to-close-ensus-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2025\/06\/16\/us-deal-may-force-redcar-biofuel-plant-to-close-ensus-warns\/","title":{"rendered":"US deal may force Redcar biofuel plant to close, Ensus warns"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Jason Arunn Murugesu<\/span><\/p>\n

BBC News, North East and Cumbria<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

A bioethanol plant will be forced to close “imminently” unless the government acts, according to its operator.<\/p>\n

Ensus, which runs the Redcar plant, said the recent UK-US tariff deal “fundamentally undermined its business position”, as it removed a 19% tariff on US ethanol imports.<\/p>\n

The firm’s chairman Grant Pearson said the government needed to come up with a “urgent” solution to save skilled jobs in the region.<\/p>\n

A Department for Business and Trade (DBT) spokesperson said it was working closely with the bioethanol industry to understand the impacts of the deal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The two plants produce bioethanol, which is blended with petrol to produce more environmentally friendly fuels, such as E10 petrol in the UK.<\/p>\n

Ensus’s Redcar plant sources feed grain from farms in the UK and Europe to produce about 400 million litres (88 million gallons) of bioethanol each year.<\/p>\n

It also sells the byproducts from this process, such as high protein animal feed, to farmers.<\/p>\n

The firm said it employed more than 100 people at the plant and that it supported a wider supply chain of about 3,000 people in northern England.<\/p>\n

It is understood the influx of US produced bioethanol into the UK would severely undercut Ensus and ABF’s businesses.<\/p>\n

Mr Pearson said the loss of the Teesside plant would also mean a “catastrophic knock-on effect in other vital sectors of the economy”.<\/p>\n

The UK is already the second-highest destination for US ethanol exports, according to US ethanol lobby group Renewable Fuels Association.<\/p>\n

Its head Geoff Cooper said in May: “We are excited about the prospects of expanded market access that will help boost our farm economy, while also delivering lower-cost, cleaner fuel to UK drivers.”<\/p>\n

US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said on X on Thursday that he was looking forward to the UK-US deal becoming “simultaneously active in the coming days”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jason Arunn Murugesu BBC News, North East and Cumbria A bioethanol plant will be forced to close “imminently” unless the government acts, according to its operator. Ensus, which runs the Redcar plant, said the recent UK-US tariff deal “fundamentally undermined its business position”, as it removed a 19% tariff on US ethanol imports. The firm’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,21,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-market","category-news","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}