AB Foods set to close bioethanol plant after US-UK trade deal
The group said it would begin consultation with employees to effect an orderly wind-down immediately, while continuing to negotiate with the government.
Under the trade deal agreed with U.S. President Donald Trump, the UK's 19% tariffs on U.S. ethanol will fall to zero, through a 1.4 billion-litre (370 million gallon) quota - a figure equating to the size of the UK's entire ethanol market today.
AB Foods (ABF.L), opens new tab, which owns the Vivergo plant in Hull, and Ensus, which is owned by Germany's Sudzucker Group and operates a bioethanol plant in Teesside in Northern England, have warned that the deal, along with existing regulations that give U.S. producers an advantage in the British market, has made the operating environment impossible.
"Unless the government is able to provide both short-term funding of Vivergo's losses and a longer-term solution, we intend to close the plant once the consultation process has completed and the business has fulfilled its contractual obligations," AB Foods said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
23 minutes ago
- Reuters
US and EU strike deal with 15% tariff to avert trade war
TURNBERRY, Scotland, July 27 (Reuters) - The United States struck a framework trade agreement with the European Union on Sunday, imposing a 15% import tariff on most EU goods, half the threatened rate, and averting a bigger trade war between two allies that account for almost a third of global trade. U.S. President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the deal at Trump's luxury golf course in western Scotland after an hour-long meeting that pushed the hard-fought deal over the line. "I think this is the biggest deal ever made," Trump told reporters, lauding EU plans to invest some $600 billion in the United States and dramatically increase its purchases of U.S. energy and military equipment. Trump said the deal, which tops a $550 billion deal signed with Japan last week, would expand ties between the trans-Atlantic powers after years of what he called unfair treatment of U.S. exporters. Von der Leyen, describing Trump as a tough negotiator, said the 15% tariff applied "across the board", later telling reporters it was "the best we could get." "We have a trade deal between the two largest economies in the world, and it's a big deal. It's a huge deal. It will bring stability. It will bring predictability," she said. The deal, which Trump said calls for $750 billion of EU purchases of U.S. energy in coming years and "hundreds of billions of dollars" of arms purchases, likely spells good news for a host of EU companies, including Airbus, Mercedes-Benz and Novo Nordisk, if all the details hold. The baseline 15% tariff will still be seen by many in Europe as too high, compared with Europe's initial hopes to secure a zero-for-zero tariff deal, though it is better than the threatened 30% rate. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomed the deal, saying it averted a trade conflict that would have hit Germany's export-driven economy and its large auto sector hard. German carmakers, VW, Mercedes and BMW were some of the hardest hit by the 27.5% U.S. tariff on car and parts imports now in place. But Bernd Lange, the German Social Democrat who heads the European Parliament's trade committee, said the tariffs were imbalanced and the hefty EU investment earmarked for the U.S. would likely come at the bloc's own expense. The euro rose around 0.2% against the dollar, sterling and yen within an hour of the deal's being announced. The deal mirrors key parts of the framework accord reached by the U.S. with Japan last week, but like that deal, it leaves many questions open, including tariff rates on spirits, a highly charged topic for many on both sides of the Atlantic. Carsten Nickel, deputy director of research at Teneo, said it was "merely a high-level, political agreement" that could not replace a carefully hammered out trade deal: "This, in turn, creates the risk of different interpretations along the way, as seen immediately after the conclusion of the U.S.-Japan deal." "We are agreeing that the tariff ... for automobiles and everything else will be a straight-across tariff of 15%," Trump said, but he quickly added that a 50% U.S. tariff on steel and aluminum will remain in place. Von der Leyen said that tariff would be cut and replaced with a quota system. Von der Leyen said the rate also applied to semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, and there would be no tariffs from either side on aircraft and aircraft parts, certain chemicals, certain generic drugs, semiconductor equipment, some agricultural products, natural resources and critical raw materials. Trump appeared to suggest pharmaceuticals would not be covered, leaving some question about that aspect of the deal. No fact sheet was immediately issued by the White House. "We will keep working to add more products to this list," von der Leyen said, adding that spirits were still under discussion. Eric Winograd, chief economist at AllianceBernstein in New York, noted the similarity with Japan's U.S. deal. "We will need to see how long the sides stick to the deal. From a market perspective, it is reassuring in the sense that having a deal is better than not having a deal," he said. The deal will be sold as a triumph for Trump, who is seeking to reorder the global economy and reduce decades-old U.S. trade deficits, and has already reached similar framework accords with Britain, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam, although his administration has not hit its goal of "90 deals in 90 days." He has periodically railed against the European Union, saying it was "formed to screw the United States" on trade. Arriving in Scotland, Trump said the EU wanted "to make a deal very badly" and said, as he met von der Leyen, that Europe had been "very unfair to the United States". Trump has fumed for years about the U.S. merchandise trade deficit with the EU, which in 2024 reached $235 billion, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. The EU points to the U.S. surplus in services, which it says partially redresses the balance. Now he argues, his tariffs are bringing in "hundreds of billions of dollars" of revenues for the U.S., while dismissing warnings from economists about the risk of inflation. On July 12, Trump threatened to apply a 30% tariff on imports from the EU starting on August 1, after weeks of negotiations with the major U.S. trading partners failed to reach a comprehensive trade deal. The EU had prepared countertariffs on 93 billion euros ($109 billion) of U.S. goods in the event there was no deal, and Trump made good his 30% tariff threat. Some member states had also pushed for the bloc to use its most powerful trade weapon, the anti-coercion instrument, to target U.S. services in the event of a no-deal.
BBC News
23 minutes ago
- BBC News
US-EU tariff deal: Both sides can claim victory, but devil may be in detail
After weeks of tense negotiations between their top trade officials, the EU and US have finally struck a deal - and it comes on the eve of America's latest round of tariff talks with it took leaders from Washington and Brussels to sit down face to face to reach Sunday's something we've also seen with the other deals that President Donald Trump has struck - his personal involvement is what has pushed them over the line – even when the prospects of a breakthrough did not seem matters to both sides because so many businesses and jobs depend on what the EU calls "the world's largest bilateral trade and investment relationship".Both President Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen can paint this as something of a the EU, the tariffs could have been worse at 15%, rather than the 30% that had been threatened – although it's not as good as the UK's 10% rate. For the US that equates to the expectation of roughly $90bn (£67bn) of tariff revenue for government coffers – based on last year's trade figures - plus there's $600bn of investment now due to come into the country.A lot of other big numbers have been thrown around in terms of how much the EU will invest in the US, but the devil will be in the like exactly when those investments will be made, and in what areas, are for now, deal is being sold as a landmark moment in relations between the US and the has not been easy getting to this and the 27-nation bloc have both played hardball and neither was ready to give in easily, which is why these talks went down to the neither side wanted these negotiations to drag on beyond the 1 August years, the US president has railed against what he regards as Europe's unfair trade first part of that is the deficit. Last year that meant the US bought $236bn of goods more from the EU than it sold to the takes the somewhat simplified view that this is American wealth needlessly leaving the country. The reality is that international trade is a more complex other complaint has been that the EU's strict regulations on everything from cars to chickens make it harder for American companies to sell their products in the EU than the other way we get more details of this deal, we may know how much has been done to address European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen seemed to acknowledge the need to tackle the announcing the agreement, she said: "We have to rebalance it. We have an excellent trade relation."It's a huge volume of trade that we have together. So we will make it more sustainable."This deal shows how serious President Trump is about renegotiating how the US, the world's biggest economy, does business with everyone the EU consists of 27 very different countries, it has seemed one of the trickier trade agreements to pull comes days after the US struck another major agreement with Japan - there have also been deals with the UK, Vietnam and other big ones still on the table are with the three biggest US trade partners - Mexico, Canada and with the US president in a deal-making mood, there could be more positive news for the global economy over the next 48 the third time in as many months, the US and China are holding their next trade talks in Stockholm, Sweden, on Monday and TuesdayThere is some expectation that higher tariffs could be suspended for another 90 days.A few days ago Trump said the US was "getting along with China very well" and implied that the major sticking point of rare earth metals exports had been the broad outlines of an EU agreement in the hold, Washington's trade negotiators have the wind in their sails going into talks with China has so far taken a more uncompromising approach than other US trade partners. And if talks between the world's two biggest economies falter, global trade could still be heading for choppy waters in the months ahead.
Reuters
23 minutes ago
- Reuters
US, Europe strike trade deal averting tariff threats
The United States has struck a framework trade deal with Europe, U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Sunday, averting a spiraling row between two allies who account for almost a third of global trade.
