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The firm said that he would be leaving D1 Oils shortly as part of an ongoing restructuring of the business.

Tawney, 50, qualified as a chartered accountant with Price Waterhouse and has been a finance director and, prior to that, financial controller with a number of international blue chip companies.

He joined D1 from WBB Minerals, part of Belgium’s Sibelco Group and one of the world’s largest providers of industrial minerals. He was UK and Ireland controller of Lucent Technologies before joining WBB in 2001. 

D1 appointed group strategy director Ben Good, who led D1 Oils’ negotiations for a joint venture with BP, as finance and commercial director in Tawney’s place with immediate effect.

Good, 43, held a variety of senior positions in financial and commercial management, corporate finance and business development before joining D1 Oils.

Having started his career in strategy consulting, he joined AWG Plc, the parent company of Anglian Water, where at different times he held the roles of director of finance and planning, commercial director and projects director.

These positions included responsibility for group finance functions, plus a range of projects including restructuring the finance teams, a major systems implementation, and significant M&A and commercial development projects in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Good subsequently moved to British Nuclear Group, where as head of projects, he led a number of corporate finance transactions and the commercial negotiations on a major engineering outsourcing deal. He has a degree in engineering, economics and management from Oxford University. 

D1 Oils (LSE:DOO) has struggled to make its main biodiesel crop, Jatropha curcas, profitable against heavily subsidised US biofuel imports.

At the beginning of the year the company had operations in refining, trading, planting and in plant science.

Given the present difficulties facing biodiesel refining in Europe due to subsidised US biodiesel imports, the board took the strategic decision to focus the business exclusively on planting and plant science, to close down its brand new refineries and make most of its staff redundant.

“We believe alternative biofuel feedstocks, of which Jatropha curcas is one of the most promising, offer significant opportunities for growth in the biofuels sector,” D1's chairman, Lord Oxburgh of Liverpool, said in an AGM statement.

Shareholders backed the refocused strategy for which D1 successfully raised net funds of £14.9m in a recent placing.

In June 2007, D1 Oils announced a 50:50 joint venture with BP, D1-BP Fuel Crops Limited, to develop global planting of Jatropha curcas.

This will have the effect of significantly increasing the scale of planting and will strengthen the operational and logistical base for biofuel production.

During 2007, D1 expanded its jatropha planting operations significantly in Africa, India and South East Asia. At 31 March 2008 total planting and rights to offtake stood at 192,016 hectares worldwide.

D1-BP Fuel Crops is evaluating a range of planting strategies along with different models to optimise the future delivery of oil to market. The first modest quantities of jatropha oil are due in the second half of 2008.

UK refining and trading activities in 2007 were adversely impacted by a combination of high feedstock prices and imports of heavily subsidised biodiesel from the US, so-called B99.

Although the introduction of the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO) in the UK from April this year has created a market for biodiesel, the D1 Oils board believes that current UK demand will largely be met by imports.

“As long as the subsidised imports continue the UK is not a viable location for refining and trading biofuel to meet domestic demand,” Lord Oxburgh noted.

D1 Oils has now ceased its refining and trading operations in the UK, resulting in a significant reduction in its total workforce. The company is currently reviewing options for the disposal of its assets and sites at Middlesbrough and Bromborough.

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• D1 Oils plc