By Chen Aizhu

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

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

Some larger producers are considering the marine fuel market in China and Singapore, the world’s top marine fuel hub, as they look for to offset currently falling biodiesel exports to the EU, biofuel executives said.

Exports to the bloc have actually fallen dramatically since mid-2023 amidst investigations. Volumes in the very first six months of this year plunged 51% from a year previously to 567,440 lots, Chinese customs data showed.

June deliveries shrank to just over 50,000 loads, the most affordable considering that mid-2019, according to custom-mades data.

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

Chinese producers of biodiesel have delighted in fat profits in current years, taking advantage of the EU’s green energy policy that gives aids to business that are utilizing biodiesel as a sustainable transport fuel such as Repsol, Shell and Neste.

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

However, the boom was brief. The EU started in August last year investigating Indonesian biodiesel that was suspected of circumventing responsibilities by going through China and Britain, followed by a 14-month anti-dumping probe into Chinese biodiesel thought to be priced synthetically low and undercutting regional manufacturers.

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

"With hefty costs of UCO partly supported by strong U.S. and European demand, and free-falling product rates, companies are having a bumpy ride making it through,” said Gary Shan, primary marketing officer of Henan Junheng.

Prices of hydrotreated veggie oil, or HVO, a main type of biodiesel, have cut in half versus last year’s average to the current $1,200 to $1,300 per metric load and are off a peak of $3,000 in 2022, Shan included.

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

Meanwhile, diminishing biodiesel sales are improving China’s UCO exports, which analysts predict 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 tons, with the United States, Singapore and the Netherlands the leading destinations.

OUTLETS

While many smaller plants are likely to shutter production forever, bigger producers like Zhejiang Jiaao, Leoking Enviro Group and Longyan Zhuoyue are exploring brand-new outlets including the marine fuel market in your home and in the important center 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 also accelerate preparation and building of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plants, executives said. China is expected to reveal an SAF mandate before completion of 2024.

They have actually also been searching for brand-new biodiesel customers outside the EU bloc, in Australia, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia where there are regional mandates for the alternative fuel, the officials added.

(Reporting by Chen Aizhu