THE company behind the UK's largest biodiesel plant saw its share price plummet last night as it admitted it was experiencing futher production problems.

The Biofuels Corporation, based in Billingham, Teesside, detected small traces of contamination in its fuel.

While Biofuels attempts to de-contaminate the fuel, it will lose a week's production at the 250,000-tonne capacity plant.

Chief executive Sean Sutcliffe told The Northern Echo last night that he regretted the problems, but believed it showed Biofuels' commitment to high quality standards.

He said: "It is slightly contaminated, but we have a process for sorting that out, which takes a little bit of time to do.

"It will put production back by about a week. Obviously, we are unhappy and our customers are unhappy and the market is disappointed, but it does underline our fundamental issue, that we deliver quality product to our customers." Mr Sutcliffe said he hoped to take production to full capacity soon.

In a statement to the stock exchange ahead of yesterday's meeting, Biofuels said: "During the past week, production has fallen marginally outside of industry specifications.

"We are working towards a permanent solution and, in the meantime, the group, with its commitment to quality, has taken the prudent step of temporarily delaying biodiesel deliveries.

"We expect deliveries to resume progressively from next week."

Last year, Biofuels was forced to suspend trading of its shares temporarily as it went into crisis talks with its bankers, following delays in starting production at the Seal Sands plant.

Barclays has agreed to bankroll the company, which is at least £80m in debt, until the end of the year.

Mr Sutcliffe said yesterday that Biofuels had appointed advisors to help it with refinancing.