By Chen Aizhu

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

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

Some larger manufacturers are considering the marine fuel market in China and Singapore, the world's leading marine fuel hub, as they look for to balance out already falling biodiesel exports to the EU, biofuel executives stated.

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

June shipments shrank to simply over 50,000 tons, the most affordable because mid-2019, according to customizeds 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, taking in 84% of China's biodiesel shipments to the EU, followed by Belgium and Spain, Chinese customizeds figures showed.

Chinese producers of biodiesel have actually delighted in fat profits recently, making the most of the EU's green energy policy that grants aids to business that are using biodiesel as a sustainable transport fuel such as Repsol, Shell and Neste.

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

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

Anticipating the tariffs, traders equipped up on used cooking oil (UCO), raising prices of the feedstock, while costs of biodiesel sank in view of shrinking demand for the Chinese supply.

"With significant prices of UCO partly supported by strong U.S. and European need, and free-falling item prices, business are having a difficult time enduring," stated Gary Shan, chief marketing officer of Henan Junheng.

Prices of hydrotreated grease, 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 actually cut their operations to a lowest level of under 20% of existing capacity usually 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 enhancing China's UCO exports, which experts forecast are set to touch a new high this year. UCO exports soared by two-thirds year-on-year in the very first half of 2024 to 1.41 million lots, with the United States, Singapore and the Netherlands the leading destinations.

OUTLETS

While numerous smaller sized plants are most 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 in the house and in the essential hub of Singapore, which is using more biodiesel for ship fuel blending, according to the biofuel executives.

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

Companies would also speed up preparation and building of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plants, executives stated. China is expected to announce an SAF mandate before completion of 2024.

They have likewise been scouting for brand-new biodiesel clients outside the EU bloc, in Australia, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia where there are regional requireds for the alternative fuel, the officials included.

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