By Chen Aizhu

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

The EU will impose provisional anti-dumping tasks of between 12.8% and 36.4% on Chinese biodiesel from Friday, striking over 40 business including leading producers Zhejiang Jiaao, Henan Junheng and Longyan Zhuoyue Group in an export company that was worth $2.3 billion last year.

Some bigger producers are considering the marine fuel market in China and Singapore, the world's leading marine fuel hub, as they look for to balance out currently falling biodiesel exports to the EU, biofuel executives said.

Exports to the bloc have actually fallen sharply given that mid-2023 amid examinations. Volumes in the first 6 months of this year plunged 51% from a year earlier to 567,440 lots, Chinese custom-mades information revealed.

June shipments diminished to simply over 50,000 tons, the most affordable given that mid-2019, according to custom-mades data.

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 customs figures showed.

Chinese manufacturers of biodiesel have actually delighted in fat revenues in recent years, maximizing the EU's green energy policy that approves aids to companies that are using biodiesel as a sustainable transport fuel such as Repsol, Shell and Neste.

A number of China's biodiesel producers are privately-run little plants using scores of employees processing waste oil collected from countless Chinese dining establishments. Before the biodiesel export boom, they were making lower-value products like soaps and processing leather items.

However, the boom was short-lived. The EU started in August last year examining Indonesian biodiesel that was thought of preventing tasks by going through China and Britain, followed by a 14-month anti-dumping probe into Chinese biodiesel thought to be priced artificially low and damaging regional manufacturers.

Anticipating the tariffs, traders stockpiled on used cooking oil (UCO), raising costs of the feedstock, while rates of biodiesel sank in view of diminishing need for the Chinese supply.

"With significant rates of UCO partially supported by strong U.S. and European demand, and free-falling item prices, business are having a hard time enduring," said Gary Shan, primary marketing officer of Henan Junheng.

Prices of hydrotreated veggie oil, or HVO, a primary kind of biodiesel, have actually cut in half versus in 2015's average to the present $1,200 to $1,300 per metric load and are off a peak of $3,000 in 2022, Shan included.

With low costs, biodiesel plants have cut their operations to an all-time low of under 20% of existing capability on average in July, down from a peak of 50% last seen in early 2023, according to Chinese consultancies Sublime China Information and JLC.

Meanwhile, shrinking biodiesel sales are boosting China's UCO exports, which analysts anticipate are set to touch a new high this year. UCO exports soared by two-thirds year-on-year in the first half of 2024 to 1.41 million heaps, with the United States, Singapore and the Netherlands the top destinations.

OUTLETS

While lots of smaller sized plants are likely to shutter production forever, bigger producers like Zhejiang Jiaao, Leoking Enviro Group and Longyan Zhuoyue are checking out new outlets consisting of the marine fuel market at home and in the essential hub of Singapore, which is using more biodiesel for ship fuel blending, according to the biofuel executives.

One of the producers, Longyan Zhuoyue, agreed in January with COSCO Shipping to use more biodiesel in marine fuel.

Companies would likewise speed up planning and structure of sustainable air travel fuel (SAF) plants, executives said. China is anticipated to announce an SAF mandate before completion of 2024.

They have actually also been scouting for new biodiesel customers outside the EU bloc, in Australia, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia where there are local requireds for the alternative fuel, the officials added.

(Reporting by Chen Aizhu; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa)