OREANDA-NEWS. October 01, 2010. Belarus on September 10 introduced a temporary six-month ban on export of rapeseed oil to the European Union, Chairman of Belgospischeprom food concern Ivan Danchenko told a news conference.

The ban is necessitated by the unexpectedly low harvest.

“We had planned to get 150,000 tonnes of rapeseed oil this year, but we will only have 101,000 tonnes. This will be enough for the food-processing and fodder industries, but we may have shortages of rapeseed oil for technical purposes, connected with production of biofuel,” he said.

According to Danchenko, Belarus used to export up to 50,000 tonnes of rapeseed oil annually, however, more rapeseed oil will be used domestically now that Belarus has launched enterprises to make biofuel.