By Chen Aizhu

SINGAPORE, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Chinese biodiesel manufacturers are seeking new outlets in Asia for their exports and exploring 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, 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 in 2015.

Some larger manufacturers are eyeing the marine fuel market in China and Singapore, the world's top marine fuel center, as they seek to balance out already falling biodiesel exports to the EU, biofuel executives stated.

Exports to the bloc have fallen dramatically because mid-2023 amid investigations. Volumes in the first six months of this year plunged 51% from a year earlier to 567,440 tons, Chinese custom-mades information showed.

June shipments diminished to simply over 50,000 tons, the most affordable since mid-2019, according to customs data.

At their peak, exports to the EU reached a record 1.8 million heaps 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 customizeds figures revealed.

Chinese producers of biodiesel have actually enjoyed fat revenues in the last few years, making the many of the EU's green energy policy that approves subsidies to business that are utilizing biodiesel as a sustainable transportation fuel such as Repsol, Shell and Neste.

Much of China's biodiesel manufacturers are privately-run little plants utilizing ratings of employees processing waste oil collected from millions of 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 began in August last year examining Indonesian biodiesel that was suspected of circumventing tasks by going through China and Britain, followed by a 14-month anti-dumping probe into Chinese biodiesel believed to be priced artificially low and damaging regional manufacturers.

Anticipating the tariffs, traders stocked up on utilized cooking oil (UCO), lifting rates of the feedstock, while prices of biodiesel sank in view of shrinking demand for the Chinese supply.

"With substantial rates of UCO partly supported by strong U.S. and European demand, and free-falling product prices, companies are having a difficult time enduring," stated Gary Shan, primary marketing officer of Henan Junheng.

Prices of hydrotreated vegetable oil, or HVO, a main type of biodiesel, have 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 added.

With low rates, biodiesel plants have cut their operations to a lowest level of under 20% of existing capacity on average in July, below 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 predict 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 tons, with the United States, Singapore and the Netherlands the top destinations.

OUTLETS

While lots of smaller sized plants are most likely to shutter production forever, larger manufacturers 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 essential center of Singapore, which is using more biodiesel for ship fuel mixing, according to the biofuel executives.

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

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

They have actually likewise been scouting for brand-new biodiesel clients outside the EU bloc, in Australia, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia where there are local mandates for the alternative fuel, the authorities added.

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