Italy's production of biodiesel was down in 2007 to about 500,000 tonnes, from 600,000 tonnes in 2006, but output should increase this year, a senior industry official said on Friday.
"The fall last year was due to unclear regulatory framework and fiscal control procedures which were too rigid," Maria Rosario Di Somma, director general of Italy's union of biodiesel producers Assocostieri, told Reuters.
But Italy, a leading European Union biodiesel producer, aims to double biodiesel output in 2008 and hit a 2 percent national "green fuel" target thanks to capacity boost and clearer regulatory framework this year, she said. "We think that total output will exceed 1 million tonnes this year as THE obligatory 2 percent target comes into force," she said.
"2008 is a year of start-ups. We have production capacity of 1.2 million tonnes and another 1 million will come on stream this year," Di Somma told Reuters on the sidelines of a bioenergy conference in Verona, northern Italy.
Italy has pledged to have a 1 percent share of biofuels - biodiesel and bioethanol - in 2007 and to double this share in 2008 and also introduce fiscal brakes for biofuels producers in a carrot and stick policy aimed at catching up with the European Union's efforts to fight climate change.
But long-awaited government decrees defining, among other things, sanctions for failing to meet obligatory targets are expected to come into force only this year. Once a regulatory framework is in place, Italian biodiesel producers would sell 850,000 tonnes of the green fuel on the domestic market, a jump from 100,000 tonnes sold in Italy in 2007, Di Somma said.
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