What we broker, in detail

Sustainable Commodities is an independent broker of pyrolysis oil, working from the Netherlands across Europe and beyond. We place tyre-derived pyrolysis oil (TPO), waste-plastic pyrolysis oil (PPO/WPPO) and biomass pyrolysis oil with refiners, steam crackers, carbon black producers and industrial fuel users. In practice a pyrolysis oil deal is decided by five numbers (chlorine, silicon, sulphur, water and metals) plus one question that catches most newcomers: is the oil a waste or a product?

Answered on this page

• Does tyre pyrolysis oil count as a biofuel under RED III?
• How do you prove the biogenic content of TPO?
• What GHG saving does TPO have to achieve?
• What is the difference between tyre pyrolysis oil and plastic pyrolysis oil?

We broker post-industrial and post-consumer waste plastics: LDPE film, HDPE, PP, mixed rigids, regrind and recycled pellets, between waste management companies, recyclers, compounders and pyrolysis plants across Europe. Since May 2026 every non-EU movement has been reshaped by the EU Waste Shipment Regulation (EU) 2024/1157, and from 21 November 2026 exports of non-hazardous plastic waste from the EU to non-OECD countries are banned outright. Where your material goes next year is a different question from where it went last year.

Answered on this page

• When does the EU plastic waste export ban start?
• Can I still export plastic waste from the EU to Turkey?
• What is the difference between 98/2 and 95/5 LDPE film?
• Do you handle mixed or contaminated plastic waste?

We broker waste PET across the chain: post-consumer bottle bales, hot-washed flake, and rPET pellets including food-grade material. PET is the most specification-driven recycled polymer in Europe, intrinsic viscosity, PVC contamination in parts per million and the colour breakdown will move the price more than volume ever does. Demand underneath it is regulatory: the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (EU) 2025/40, which applies from 12 August 2026, sets binding recycled-content targets from 2030 that no converter can meet without contracted rPET.

Answered on this page

• What IV is needed for bottle-grade rPET?
• Why is PVC contamination measured in ppm rather than percent?
• What recycled content will EU packaging law require in 2030?
• What makes rPET food-grade?

We broker vegetable and technical oils, with the emphasis on grades that sit outside the food chain: technical and non-food grades, acid oils, soapstock, PFAD, palm acid oil and distillers corn oil, alongside crude and refined palm, soy, rape, sunflower and corn oil. Most of what we place is heading into an oleochemical, feed or energy outlet rather than a food one, which changes the specification that matters and the buyer that pays best.

Answered on this page

• What is the difference between acid oil, soapstock and PFAD?
• When does EUDR apply to palm and soy oil?
• Do you broker food-grade vegetable oils?
• What is distillers corn oil and why is it in demand?

We broker used cooking oil between collectors and aggregators on one side and FAME, HVO and SAF producers on the other, across Europe and on import parcels. UCO is a waste-based feedstock listed in Annex IX Part B of the Renewable Energy Directive, which is where its value comes from, and it means the ISCC EU certificate and the traceability behind it are part of the product, not paperwork attached to it. A cargo whose chain of custody does not survive an audit is worth a fraction of one that does.

Answered on this page

• What specification does UCO need to meet?
• Is UCO an Annex IX Part A or Part B feedstock?
• Does UCO still count double in the EU?
• Why is UCO from China subject to anti-dumping duties?

We broker animal fats and tallow across all three ABP categories into biodiesel, renewable diesel, oleochemical and, where the category permits, feed outlets. The first question is never the specification, it is the category under Regulation (EC) No 1069/2009, because that decides which outlets are legally available at all. Only once that is settled do FFA, titre, moisture and impurities decide the price.

Answered on this page

• Can category 1 animal fat be used for biodiesel?
• What is the difference between category 1, 2 and 3 animal fat?
• What is titre and why does it matter?
• Do animal fats count towards the Annex IX Part B cap?

We broker POME oil, SBEO and SSAO into European biodiesel, HVO and SAF producers. Both are residues rather than primary products, and both trade almost entirely on their classification under EU renewable fuel rules, a question settled nationally, not at EU level. In this market the regulatory position in the destination country is worth more than a point of FFA, and it is where most POME conversations should start.

Answered on this page

• What is POME oil?
• Is POME an Annex IX Part A or Part B feedstock?
• Does POME-derived biofuel count towards EU targets everywhere?
• What is the difference between SBEO and SSAO?

We broker FAME biodiesel: UCOME, RME, TME, SME and PME, across single counting, double counting and advanced ISCC grades, between producers, blenders, distributors and obligated parties. A FAME cargo is priced on three things at once: the specification (EN 14214 and the cold-flow grade), the feedstock behind the ester, and the certification that lets a blender count it. Get any one of the three wrong and the cargo does not trade at the number the seller expected.

Answered on this page

• What is the minimum ester content under EN 14214?
• What is the difference between UCOME, RME and TME?
• Why does CFPP cause so many rejected cargoes?
• Does double counting still apply to FAME in the EU?

We broker HVO renewable diesel, sustainable aviation fuel and bionaphtha between producers, oil majors, distributors, aviation fuel suppliers and petrochemical buyers. These are hydrotreated products, so the conversation is different from FAME: they are chemically drop-in, which means the specification is rarely the obstacle and the feedstock traceability, the certification chain and the mandate treatment are.

Answered on this page

• What is the difference between HVO and FAME biodiesel?
• What is HEFA-SPK?
• What does ReFuelEU Aviation require?
• What is bionaphtha used for?

When a cargo fails, the clock costs more than the discount. We place off-spec, rejected, contaminated and distressed parcels, biodiesel outside EN 14214, vegetable oil with FFA or colour out, fats with a moisture or titre problem, commingled or heat-damaged parcels, and recycled polymer loads that failed inbound inspection. The commercial question is never "what is it worth" in the abstract. It is which buyer can physically run it, how fast they can take it, and what demurrage and storage are costing while everyone decides.

Answered on this page

• How quickly can you place an off-spec cargo?
• What happens to off-spec biodiesel?
• Do you buy distressed cargo yourselves?
• Should I keep the retained samples?

We are not an insurance intermediary and we give no insurance advice. What we do is the other half of a cargo loss. When a parcel is damaged, contaminated, rejected or held, the claim is handled by the cargo owner's insurer, surveyor, average adjuster and lawyers, and somebody still has to find a buyer who can actually take the material, quickly, before storage and demurrage eat the residual value. That commercial disposal is what we are brought in for, and it is rarely anyone else's job in the room.

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• Are you an insurance broker?
• So what exactly do you do when a cargo is damaged?
• Should I wait for the insurer before selling the cargo?
• What is the most common mistake owners make?

Waste plastic pyrolysis oil (PPO, also WPPO) is the highest-value pyrolysis oil, but only if it can reach a steam cracker. We broker it between plant operators and crackers, refiners and hydrotreaters across Europe. The gap between fuel value and circular-feedstock value is large, and two things close it: total chlorine down to single-digit ppm, and ISCC PLUS mass balance so the polymer producer downstream can make a certified circular claim. Everything else in the negotiation is secondary to those two. We are actively looking for light and middle fraction for buyers of ours; full range undistilled oil we will still look at, but the fractionated cuts place faster and better.

Answered on this page

• Which fraction of plastic pyrolysis oil are you buying?
• What are the three fractions of plastic pyrolysis oil?
• Is it worth fractionating before selling?
• What chlorine level does a steam cracker accept in plastic pyrolysis oil?

Tyre pyrolysis oil is aromatic, high in sulphur and not a drop-in cracker feed, and confusing it with plastic-derived oil is the fastest way to lose credibility with a buyer. We broker TPO from end-of-life tyre processors into carbon black production, industrial and marine fuel blending, and refinery upgrading. It is a real market with real buyers; it is simply a different one from the circular-polymer chain that plastic pyrolysis oil sells into.

Answered on this page

• What is the difference between tyre pyrolysis oil and plastic pyrolysis oil?
• Which tyre pyrolysis oil fractions are you looking for?
• What is non-distilled TPO?
• Why do carbon black producers want the heavy fraction?

HVO is a hydrocarbon, not an ester: which is why it behaves so differently from FAME and why the conversation moves so quickly past the specification. Made by hydrotreating vegetable oils, waste oils and fats, it is specified under EN 15940 for paraffinic diesel, and HVO100 can be used neat in approved applications. We broker it between producers, majors, distributors and large fleet users. What is actually being traded is the feedstock and the certificate: two identical litres of EN 15940 fuel can be worth materially different money depending on what they were made from and what the buyer can count.

Answered on this page

• What is the difference between HVO and FAME biodiesel?
• What is HVO100?
• Why is HVO hard to buy on the spot market?
• Does HVO count double towards renewable fuel targets?

SAF is the tightest specification and the heaviest documentation of anything we broker, and the demand under it is a legal obligation rather than a commercial preference. We work between producers, aviation fuel suppliers, airlines and traders on neat and blended volume. Most of what actually moves today is HEFA-SPK, synthesized paraffinic kerosene from hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids, made from the same fats and oils that make HVO. It is certified under ASTM D7566 Annex A2, blends into conventional jet at up to 50 %, and once blended and released the fuel is redesignated as meeting ASTM D1655 and handled exactly like conventional jet fuel.

Answered on this page

• What is HEFA SAF?
• What does ReFuelEU Aviation require?
• Can SAF be used neat in aircraft?
• What is book-and-claim SAF?

Bionaphtha is the light co-product of hydrotreating fats and oils into HVO and SAF, and it has two possible homes with very different economics. Into a steam cracker it becomes certified renewable feedstock for bio-based polymers, and the premium comes from the claim a brand owner can make downstream. Into gasoline blending it is a good blend component and prices much closer to fossil naphtha. We broker it between producers and both sets of buyers, and which route is open depends almost entirely on the certification.

Answered on this page

• What is bionaphtha?
• What is the difference between bionaphtha and plastic pyrolysis oil?
• Why does bionaphtha sell at a premium to fossil naphtha?
• What certification does bionaphtha need for the petrochemical route?

Annex IX of the EU Renewable Energy Directive is the list that decides what a waste-based feedstock is worth. Part A covers advanced feedstocks and counts towards the advanced sub-target. Part B covers used cooking oil and category 1 and 2 animal fats, and is capped at 1.7 % of transport energy per member state. Below are both lists in full. The commercial point is not the list itself: it is that the same physical cargo can sit in different places depending on how it is classified and which member state it lands in.

Answered on this page

• What is the difference between Annex IX Part A and Part B?
• Is crude glycerine an Annex IX feedstock?
• Which part is POME in?
• Is category 3 animal fat in Annex IX?

Recycled carbon fuels are liquid or gaseous fuels made from waste or exhaust gas of non-renewable origin, where the waste is no longer suitable for material recycling. In practice that means non-recyclable plastic waste and unavoidable industrial waste gases, usually converted by pyrolysis or gasification. The critical point, and the one that catches people out: an RCF is not a renewable fuel. It sits outside Annex IX entirely and is accounted for under its own rules, with a 70 % greenhouse gas saving threshold set by Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/1185.

Answered on this page

• What is a recycled carbon fuel?
• Is a recycled carbon fuel a renewable fuel?
• What greenhouse gas saving does an RCF have to achieve?
• Is plastic pyrolysis oil an RCF?

We broker crude and refined glycerine. Crude glycerine is the co-product of biodiesel and oleochemical production, and it has an advantage many sellers do not realise they hold: it is listed in Annex IX Part A of the EU Renewable Energy Directive, at point (i), which puts it in the advanced feedstock category rather than the capped Part B category. Four numbers then decide which buyer you are actually talking to: purity, MONG, ash and residual methanol.

Answered on this page

• Is crude glycerine an Annex IX feedstock?
• What is MONG in a glycerine specification?
• What purity is crude glycerine?
• Why does methanol content matter?

Fusel oil is the higher-alcohol fraction separated during ethanol distillation, made up mainly of amyl alcohols with smaller amounts of propanol, butanol and isobutanol. Volumes are meaningful wherever fuel ethanol is made at scale, and it is one of those co-products that gets sold cheaply because the producer treats it as a distillation nuisance rather than a chemical feedstock. We place it into mineral processing, solvent and chemical outlets, and we have people close to the Brazilian production base.

Answered on this page

• What is fusel oil?
• What is fusel oil used for?
• Does fusel oil replace mercury in gold mining?
• Is fusel oil sold crude or refined?

We help counterparties find tank storage, and it is one of the more useful things we do that has nothing to do with buying or selling a cargo. Capacity in the ARA range and other European hubs is tight, certified capacity for waste-based feedstocks tighter still, and heated capacity for high-titre material tighter again. We have long-standing contacts on the terminal side and we use them, alongside freight optimisation and supply chain analysis.

Answered on this page

• Can you find tank storage for us?
• Do you have access to ISCC certified storage?
• Can you arrange heated storage?
• Do you handle freight as well?

Co-processing is a refinery running bio feedstock through its existing units alongside crude oil. The renewable and fossil molecules come out inseparably mixed, so the renewable share is established by mass balance accounting rather than by physical segregation. For aviation this route is limited: ASTM D1655 Annex A1 permits co-processing at up to 5 %, well below the 50 % blending limit available to HEFA-SPK produced as a standalone fuel. The attraction is that co-processing needs no new plant, so it delivers renewable volume from existing refineries.

Answered on this page

• What is co-processing?
• What is the co-processing limit for jet fuel?
• Is co-processed kerosene the same as SAF?
• What is the difference between co-processed naphtha and bionaphtha?

Crude tall oil is a by-product of softwood kraft pulping, a mixture of fatty acids, rosin acids and neutral unsaponifiable material. Supply is capped by how much softwood pulp gets made, which is why this market behaves differently from every other feedstock we handle: biofuel producers and oleochemical producers compete for the same fixed barrel. Three numbers decide where a parcel goes: acid number, rosin acid content and unsaponifiables.

Answered on this page

• What is crude tall oil?
• Is crude tall oil an Annex IX feedstock?
• What acid number does fuel-quality CTO need?
• What is the difference between CTO, TOFA and tall oil pitch?

CNSL is the dark, viscous phenolic liquid held in the cashew nut shell, and it is one of the few genuinely large-volume natural sources of long-chain phenols: anacardic acid, cardanol and cardol. That chemistry is why it is bought by resin, coatings and friction material manufacturers rather than purely as an energy product. We broker technical, acid and distilled grades from the producing regions, principally India, Vietnam, Brazil and West Africa.

Answered on this page

• What is CNSL?
• What is the difference between technical CNSL and natural CNSL?
• What is cardanol used for?
• Where is CNSL produced?

Acid oils are the concentrated fatty acid streams that come out of vegetable oil refining, and esterified acid oils are those streams upgraded by esterification into material a biodiesel plant can actually run. Two things govern the trade. Commercially, total fatty acid is the pricing basis, not tonnage: you are buying the usable fraction, not the drum. Regulatory, the origin of the parent oil decides the Annex IX position and therefore much of the value.

Answered on this page

• What is an esterified acid oil?
• How is acid oil priced?
• What is the difference between acid oil, soapstock and PFAD?
• Do acid oils qualify under Annex IX?

This trade is inherently cross-border. Feedstock is collected where people live and eat, processed where there is capacity, and consumed where there is a mandate, and those are rarely the same place. We work on pyrolysis oil projects and feedstock flows across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas, with team members in the Netherlands, Brazil, Scotland, England and the Czech Republic, and counterparty relationships considerably wider than that.

Answered on this page

• Where do you have people on the ground?
• Do you work on pyrolysis oil projects outside Europe?
• Can you help a project that is still in development?
• Do you arrange international shipping?

We do more than introduce buyers and sellers: we also supply additives and blending chemicals, and it is a real part of what we do rather than a sideline. Cold flow additives such as pour point depressants and CFPP improvers, process chemicals such as potassium hydroxide and methanol, and and the two alkoxide catalysts that actually run a biodiesel plant, KM32 and NM30. Where useful we pair that with the theoretical blend calculation and a hand blend tested at a partner laboratory, so the additive is chosen against a measured result rather than a datasheet.

Answered on this page

• Do you supply fuel additives as well as broker cargo?
• Do you supply catalysts into North Africa?
• What is KM32?
• What is NM30, and how do I choose between NM30 and KM32?

In this market the certificate is not paperwork, it is the product. Uncertified material cannot enter an EU renewable fuel claim, and the price difference between certified and uncertified is usually far larger than any audit fee. We are not a certification body and we do not audit. What we do is explain honestly what certification involves, introduce you to our certification partner, and stay involved so the scope you end up with is the scope you actually needed.

Answered on this page

• How long does ISCC certification take?
• What does ISCC certification cost?
• What is the difference between ISCC EU and ISCC PLUS?
• Do I need ISCC to sell used cooking oil?

Let us be straight: REACH is not our core business. We are a commodity brokerage, not a regulatory consultancy. But REACH decides whether some of what we broker can legally be placed on the EU market, and the question gets asked far too late far too often. Three points cover most situations: waste is outside REACH until end-of-waste; Annex V exempts a list that includes vegetable and animal fats and oils, many fatty acids and glycerol; and pyrolysis oil, as a UVCB, generally is not exempt.

Answered on this page

• Does REACH apply to waste?
• Does pyrolysis oil need REACH registration?
• Is used cooking oil exempt from REACH?
• Is glycerine exempt from REACH registration?

We do not publish price assessments and we do not republish anyone else's. Price reporting agencies license that work and it is not ours to give away. What we can do is more useful anyway: explain how each quotation is constructed, so you can tell whether two numbers are actually comparable, and give you a live read on where business is clearing when you ask. Most of the price confusion we see is not about the level. It is about the basis.

Answered on this page

• What is the price of UCO CIF Rotterdam today?
• Why is UCO FOB China sometimes higher than CIF Rotterdam?
• Is there a benchmark price for pyrolysis oil?
• How should I compare two offers from different origins?

This trade runs in English. Incoterms, specifications, Annex IX, ISCC, CIF and FOB have no useful local equivalents, and a mistranslated acid number or cap is worse than no translation at all. So our technical pages stay in English by choice. What follows is an accurate summary of who we are and what we broker, in the languages of the markets we actually work in, with the trade terms deliberately left in English because that is how they are used everywhere.

Answered on this page

• Do you speak my language?
• Why is the rest of the site only in English?
• Can you handle contracts in another language?

Do not start by calling oil traders. Almost everyone does, and it is why so many first cargoes go nowhere. The route that works runs in four steps: prove exactly what your oil is, settle whether it is legally a waste or a product, get certified if you want the premium, and only then approach the buyers whose plant can actually run it. Skip a step and you will be asked for it later anyway, usually by the buyer you most wanted.

Answered on this page

• I want to sell pyrolysis oil in Europe. Who can help?
• Who buys pyrolysis oil in Europe?
• What do I need before I can offer pyrolysis oil?
• Which laboratory should test my pyrolysis oil?