Brussels, October 26:

The EU and America are expected soon to agree international standards fortrading biofuels that could see a huge expansion in the global market for alternative sources of power such as jatropha, senior US diplomats said yesterday.

C Boyden Gray, US ambassador to the EU, said he expects the two sides to signal the adoption of ‘pretty firm’ international standards at a meeting of the new Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) in Washington on November 9. It could be fully adopted by the end of year.

The agreement would be a significant boost to efforts by biodiesel producers to refine thousands of tonnes of oil produced from the seeds ofthe jatropha curcas grown in poor, dry soil in Africa and the Caribbean as well as India and Nepal.

It has not been an easy path. Last month the biodiesel producer D1 cut back its expansion plans because of a row over subsidised imports of soya-based biodiesels from the US. The European Biodiesel Board , a trade group of EU producers, has threatened legal action over the $1 a gallon subsidies for biodiesel.

Gray accused the EU in turn of precluding other feedstocks for biofuel in favour of rapeseed oil — prompted, he claimed, by the German farming lobby.

Gray said he was confident the TEC, the brainchild of president Bush and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, designed to speed up common US-EU regulatory measures and spur investment ‘to prevent us both beingrun over by China,’ would back common technical standards.

The EU has set a target of 10 per cent use of biofuels by 2020 as part of its campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 per cent but is under pressure from green campaigners to limit the use of feedstocks such aspalm oil for biofuel because of the deforestation threat they see as going with it.