THE future of a mothballed £250m North-East refinery was last night thrown into doubt after bosses admitted they couldn’t give a date for when work will start again.

CropEnergies AG has confirmed its Ensus bioethanol plant, in Wilton, near Redcar, continues to lie dormant, three months after it was shut down.

The German company says its Ensus woes have already delivered a £20m hit in restructuring costs, with a further £11m expected in lost revenues.

Work at the Redcar site, which is regarded as a key factor in the UK meeting renewable fuel targets, was stopped after bioethanol prices were dented by subdued European markets and compounded by the sunken oil price.

The firm told The Northern Echo the industry has not yet sufficiently improved to start work again, though last night, Paul Brannen, Labour MEP, offered some reassurances, saying EU talks had taken place to lift bioethanol use in petrol and help producers.

Despite Ensus’ slump, CropEnergies said its 100-strong workforce has not been affected, with staff retained across the Wilton site, as well as a sister base in Yarm, to carry out maintenance.

A spokeswoman said they are also making improvements to the factory, with a view to getting work started quickly once market conditions pick up.

She added: “The plant in Wilton is currently still at a standstill, but has retained its workforce.

“The plan is to restart the factory once the European bioethanol prices have sustainably reached a profitable level once again.”

The plant uses wheat to create bioethanol, which is added to petrol.

The remaining protein and grain is used to make thousands of tonnes of animal feed and carbon dioxide for the soft drinks and food market every year.

However, the Ensus site has endured a chequered history, with low demand, poor harvests, rising energy costs and even a bad smell forcing closures and hindering production since it started in 2010.

But Ensus, which took over the running of the factory in 2013, previously praised its impact on the business; including the time the plant helped the firm lift sales to more than one million cubic metres of bioethanol for the first time.

Such successes were alluded to by Mr Brannen, who sits on the European Parliament agriculture committee, which deals with biofuels.

He said he hoped an EU deal to help bioethanol producers would bring back such successes at Ensus.

Mr Brannen added: “I’ve visited Ensus and it’s a great facility.

“They told me they need certainty in the biofuels market and my priority in the European Parliament is to achieve that.

“We have reached a deal, which means 6.5 per cent of the energy use in petrol should come from biofuels, and hopefully this agreement will give stability to producers.”

In a report released last month, CropEnergies warned of difficult times ahead, despite seeing revenues increase from £561m to £594m for the year to February 28 2015.

It added: “We have already drawn attention to the anticipated difficult market conditions in the first half of the financial year 2015/16.

“Even though the ethanol prices in the EU have increased in the last few weeks, there are still doubts about the sustainability of the current price level.

“Against this background, we expect an operating profit in the range of minus £14m to plus £7m for the financial year 2015/16.”