{"id":11136,"date":"2026-05-13T10:42:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T10:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/11136\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T10:42:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T10:42:58","slug":"bp-cancels-rotterdam-biofuels-plant-joining-shell-in-heavy-capital-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/11136\/","title":{"rendered":"BP Cancels Rotterdam Biofuels Plant, Joining Shell in Heavy Capital Retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"speakable\">BP has cancelled plans for a major biofuels facility at its Rotterdam refinery, scoring another setback for Europe\u2019s drive to scale advanced biofuels, as reported by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/sustainability\/climate-energy\/bp-abandons-plans-build-rotterdam-biofuels-plant-2025-09-22\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters<\/a>. The energy giant confirmed on Monday that it will not proceed with the standalone plant and will instead focus on co-processing biofuels in existing refineries, which are cheaper, lower-risk options. A spokesperson said that the project no longer met BP\u2019s capital return thresholds, which mirror those of its upstream oil and gas operations.<\/p>\n<p>The Rotterdam project was part of a wider slate of facilities BP once said could deliver 50,000 barrels per day of biofuels by 2030. None reached a final investment decision. The company now produces around 10,000 bpd of biofuels through refinery co-processing and relies on its Brazilian joint venture with Bunge, which produces ethanol from sugarcane. Spain\u2019s Castellon site is the only remaining large-scale project under review.<\/p>\n<p>BP\u2019s retreat comes just weeks after <a href=\"https:\/\/oilprice.com\/Company-News\/Shell-Scraps-Rotterdam-Biofuels-Plant-Over-Cost-Concerns.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shell scrapped<\/a> its own biofuels facility in Rotterdam, a plant designed to produce 820,000 tonnes annually of renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel. Shell executives said the project had become \u201cinsufficiently competitive\u201d and booked impairment charges of up to $1 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The back-to-back exits by Europe\u2019s two largest oil companies highlight the pressures facing <a href=\"https:\/\/oilprice.com\/Energy\/Energy-General\/Big-Oil-Pours-Billions-into-Biofuel-Production-to-Meet-Decarbonization-Goals.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">advanced biofuels<\/a> despite strong EU policy support. High feedstock costs, policy uncertainty, and shareholder demands for higher returns have eroded enthusiasm for multibillion-dollar standalone projects. Instead, both firms are steering capital toward oil and gas, where profitability is more reliable.<\/p>\n<p>Together, the cancellations remove what was expected to be more than a million tonnes of new European capacity, prompting questions about how the European Union will meet its binding targets for sustainable aviation fuel, which require airlines to use at least 6% SAF by 2030 and progressively more thereafter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>By Tom Kool for Oilprice.com<\/p>\n<p>More Top Reads From Oilprice.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BP has cancelled plans for a major biofuels facility at its Rotterdam refinery, scoring another setback for Europe\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9338,3519,9337,41,9339,4413,216],"class_list":["post-11136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rotterdam","tag-aviation-fuel","tag-biofuels","tag-bp","tag-rotterdam","tag-saf","tag-shell","tag-the-netherlands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}