Revisiting the palm oil boom in europe as a source of renewable energy: Evidence from time series analysis

The EU is one of the key consumers of palm oil globally. Over 2000-2017, the EU countries increased their total use of palm oil by 63%. The palm oil is used in large volumes by food, personal care and biofuel industries. However, the general increase in palm oil consumption in Europe can be related to the increase in its use, mostly as biodiesel. For biodiesel, the principal European-grown feedstock is the rapeseed oil. Nevertheless, it becoming increasingly difficult for European rapeseed oil to compete with imported palm oil. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, it aims at presenting the European palm oil market, second, it seeks to explore whether there are relationships among prices for palm oil, rapeseed oil and biodiesel using times series analysis method. Rapeseed oil is the most prominently used vegetable oils and has a number of food and industrial uses. In contrast, biodiesel represents the energy-based prospective.