By Chen Aizhu

SINGAPORE, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Chinese biodiesel producers are seeking new outlets in Asia for their exports and checking out producing other biofuels as supply to the European Union, their most significant purchaser, dries up ahead of anti-dumping tariffs, biofuel executives and experts stated.

The EU will enforce provisionary anti-dumping tasks of in between 12.8% and 36.4% on Chinese biodiesel from Friday, hitting over 40 business consisting of leading manufacturers Zhejiang Jiaao, Henan Junheng and Longyan Zhuoyue Group in an export business that was worth $2.3 billion last year.

Some bigger producers are considering the marine fuel market in China and Singapore, the world’s top marine fuel hub, as they look for to balance out already falling biodiesel exports to the EU, stated.

Exports to the bloc have fallen greatly since mid-2023 amidst investigations. Volumes in the first six months of this year plunged 51% from a year earlier to 567,440 loads, Chinese custom-mades data showed.

June shipments diminished to simply over 50,000 lots, the least expensive given that mid-2019, according to custom-mades information.

At their peak, exports to the EU reached a record 1.8 million lots in 2023, representing 90% of all Chinese biodiesel exports that year. The Netherlands was the leading importer in 2023, soaking in 84% of China’s biodiesel deliveries to the EU, followed by Belgium and Spain, Chinese customizeds figures revealed.

Chinese manufacturers of biodiesel have actually enjoyed fat earnings recently, maximizing the EU’s green energy policy that approves aids to companies that are utilizing biodiesel as a sustainable transportation fuel such as Repsol, Shell and Neste.

A lot of China’s biodiesel producers are privately-run small plants utilizing scores of employees processing waste oil gathered from countless Chinese dining establishments. Before the biodiesel export boom, they were making lower-value items like soaps and processing leather items.

However, the boom was brief. The EU started in August in 2015 investigating Indonesian biodiesel that was presumed of circumventing duties by going through China and Britain, followed by a 14-month anti-dumping probe into Chinese biodiesel believed to be priced synthetically low and undercutting regional producers.

Anticipating the tariffs, traders equipped up on utilized cooking oil (UCO), raising rates of the feedstock, while prices of biodiesel sank in view of diminishing need for the Chinese supply.

“With hefty costs of UCO partly supported by strong U.S. and European need, and free-falling item rates, business are having a hard time surviving,” said Gary Shan, chief marketing officer of Henan Junheng.

Prices of hydrotreated veggie oil, or HVO, a primary type of biodiesel, have halved versus last year’s average to the present $1,200 to $1,300 per metric heap and are off a peak of $3,000 in 2022, Shan added.

With low rates, biodiesel plants have cut their operations to a lowest level of under 20% of existing capacity typically in July, below a peak of 50% last seen in early 2023, according to Chinese consultancies Sublime China Information and JLC.

Meanwhile, diminishing biodiesel sales are increasing China’s UCO exports, which experts anticipate are set to touch a brand-new high this year. UCO exports soared by two-thirds year-on-year in the first half of 2024 to 1.41 million loads, with the United States, Singapore and the Netherlands the leading locations.

OUTLETS

While numerous smaller plants are most likely to shutter production indefinitely, larger manufacturers like Zhejiang Jiaao, Leoking Enviro Group and Longyan Zhuoyue are exploring brand-new outlets consisting of the marine fuel market in the house and in the essential hub of Singapore, which is utilizing more biodiesel for ship fuel blending, according to the biofuel executives.

Among the producers, Longyan Zhuoyue, agreed in January with COSCO Shipping to utilize more biodiesel in marine fuel.

Companies would likewise speed up preparation and structure of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plants, executives said. China is anticipated to reveal an SAF required before the end of 2024.

They have likewise been searching for new biodiesel customers outside the EU bloc, in Australia, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia where there are local mandates for the alternative fuel, the authorities included.

(Reporting by Chen Aizhu