On Friday afternoon, ABG told the market it was ramping up production from its Queensland and New South Wales plants.

A couple of hours later Agri announced it was abandoning its Australian plans in favour of the more lucrative United States market.

Construction of the company’s Beatrice biodiesel plant in Nebraska is due for completion at the end of October, with first output expected in November.

Agri is also building its first ethanol plant at Swan Hill in northwestern Victoria which is due to start-up in the first half of 2008.

The company had also applied to build its second ethanol plant in the state.

However, the company has now restructured its business in a way that would see its principal operational hub relocate to the US, while scaling back its Australian business to a core administrative group.

Agri said Australia’s biofuels investment climate was less attractive than overseas destinations such as the US and Europe.

“The decision to put on hold any further development in the Australian biofuels industry is a result of current global biofuels market outlook reflecting ongoing high feedstock prices and continued uncertainty from the investment community, government and community support for alternative transport fuels in Australia,” the company said.

“As a result, investment in offshore markets, particularly the United States and European biofuels industries, represents a preferred medium-term focus.”

Agri added it was in discussions with groups in these regions to consolidate its global business and rationalise operations under a more appropriate structure.

Meanwhile, ABG said it had been gradually restoring sales volumes over the third quarter, after shutting down direct customer supply activities over the second quarter of 2007.

ABG said it now only supplied biodiesel to several large fuel blenders and distributors, to which the company has been sending its previous customers.

“With former customers taking time to engage with new distributors and with the traditional winter slowdown in biodiesel consumption, total sales for the third quarter totaled 1.115 million litres,” ABG said.

“However, forward sales orders have been growing over recent weeks and ABG anticipates sales to average around 1 million litres per month over the final quarter of the year.”

ABG said it has secured four independent distribution partners able to supply large volumes of blended biodiesel to end-users in Queensland and New South Wales.

The company is also supplying biodiesel for a bus trial in Brisbane.

The four-month trial involves 25 buses using pre-blended B20 (20% biodiesel, 80% diesel) for the next four months.