UK Ethanol Maker in Last-Ditch Effort to Save Plant on US Threat

A UK ethanol producer that has warned of the risk to its business from rising tariff-free US imports said it is almost too late to save its output. 

The facility at Wilton, England faces “imminent closure” following last month’s trade agreement with the US, operator Ensus said in a statement. A production halt would eliminate more than 100 jobs at the plant and affect a supply chain of about 3,000 people locally.

“We are at the 11th hour,” Grant Pearson, chairman of Ensus, said in a statement. “The government urgently needs to find a solution to a crisis of its own making.”

Ensus is calling for the UK to boost demand for ethanol, which is typically made from grains or sugar and is blended into gasoline to cut emissions, to above the US quota level. The US — currently producing record volumes of the additive — has agreed to allow as much as 15% of ethanol in transport fuel. In the UK, standard gasoline, or petrol, contains as much as 10%.

The Ensus plant can produce as much as 400 million liters of ethanol annually. That’s less than a third of consumption in the UK, already a net-importer.

As a byproduct of ethanol output, Ensus — owned by Germany’s Suedzucker AG — makes high-protein animal feed used in agriculture and commercial carbon dioxide, which has food and medical uses. A rival UK producer owned by Associated British Foods Plc said last week it will stop buying wheat for its plant in Saltend, England. 

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