Who buys crude and refined glycerine in Europe

Oleochemical producers into soaps and detergents, feed compounders using it as an energy ingredient, refined-glycerine houses upgrading crude for pharma and cosmetics, and industrial chemical users. Crude sells on purity and salt, refined sells on specification, and both markets run below.

Yes, crude glycerine imports as a chemical cargo with its classification, safety data sheet and analysis, the methanol and salt numbers riding on the certificate. The import file is ordinary chemical trade, and the cargo's value bands survive the journey intact (see our CN codes page).

The classification sets the tariff, with refined grades and crude trading on their own lines, and duty rates modest against the value spread between grades. The landed arithmetic matters most at crude level, where margins ride on percentages.

French refiners, oleochemical users and feed compounders, the biodiesel coproduct market matured into steady channels. French glycerine buyers quote MONG in perfect grammar.

Yes, British refiners and industrial users take crude and technical glycerine under ordinary chemical trade rules. The glycerine market never needed mandates to function.

Italian chemical and personal care chains consume technical glycerine, the peninsula's formulation industry a natural home. Italy buys glycerine by the specification and enjoys the negotiation.

With biodiesel capacity and chemical industry development both expanding, Eastern demand grows steadily from a smaller base. Glycerine follows fatty acid chemistry wherever it builds.

Feed inclusion runs continuously with seasonal formulation shifts, energy prices steering the diet maths. The feed door never closes, it just reprices.

Only as feedstock to refiners, pharma grade being a refined product several purifications away, the crude seller's customer being the refiner. Everyone climbs the same mountain from different floors.

Crude trades spot and term both, spot suiting irregular plant output and term suiting steady producers, the refiner's tanks deciding their patience. Glycerine's market depth absorbs both calendars.

Biodiesel production, the coproduct tap that sets availability, with demand from chemicals and feed absorbing the flow. One industry's byproduct is another's weather system.

Mean-reverting around production swings, less dramatic than fuels because demand is industrial and patient, but real trends follow mandate seasons. Boring mostly, which traders respect.

German refiners, oleochemical processors and the feed industry, Europe's largest glycerine market, fed by the country's huge biodiesel production. German buyers read a crude specification like an audit and pay accordingly.

Yes, small plant crude aggregates into refining parcels through traders, the standard route below plant-scale continuity. The upgrade path is simple: steady volume, consistent analysis, then direct contracts.

Glycerol percentage, MONG, methanol, salt and water, the five numbers that define crude glycerine's price band. Salt matters double because it complicates refining, and methanol because it complicates everything else.

ISO tank lots of 20 to 26 tonnes upward, with monthly term the norm for plants and aggregation the norm for everyone smaller. Glycerine moves in a merchant structure, which is why traders matter more here than in most streams.

Compliance-value glycerine does, where it carries renewable claims into feed or chemicals, and technical buyers often skip it. Same cargo, two markets, one certificate decision that changes the price.

At suitable purity and with the feed safety documentation, yes, and feed is historically the volume outlet for crude. The written ceilings are in catalogue entry 13.8.1 of Regulation (EU) No 68/2013: up to 0.5 % methanol, salts up to 7.5 % and MONG up to 4 %, with sodium and potassium declared above 1.5 % and nickel above 20 ppm. Below feed purity the cargo is industrial, and the price remembers.

They do not have to, but almost all do, because storing a coproduct that keeps arriving is not a business. The real question is whether to sell crude as it comes or refine first, and that is exactly the fork where our fee is cheaper than the wrong choice.

A mix of dedicated refiners and oleochemical companies with their own glycerine streams, plus trading houses that aggregate crude from many plants into refining parcels. Which door fits your cargo depends on volume and purity profile, and we keep all three open.

Yes, but into a different list. Sub-80% crude realistically sells to biogas and some feed outlets at substrate pricing, not to refiners. If the volume justifies it, upstream changes in the transesterification and washing step can move the crude a grade -- worth knowing before you sell, not after.

Not automatically as a certificate the way a PoS-bearing feedstock does; glycerine itself is not the compliance product. But its origin matters to buyers: biogas operators in Belgium and the Netherlands specifically value waste-based glycerine, and that is where origin shows up in the price.

Methanol is volatile, flammable and poisons the refining step; it also has to be stripped and handled as emissions. The feed ceiling is 0.5 %, and methanol itself is a Class 3 flammable liquid, UN 1230. A crude with high methanol is a handling problem before it is a product, so refiners screen it first and price it last.

Only above serious volumes and with a stable crude: refining is capital and quality-systems heavy, and the integrated players have scale. Most producers we work with sell crude well and leave the refining margin to those built for it.