By Chen Aizhu

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

The EU will enforce provisional anti-dumping tasks of between 12.8% and 36.4% on Chinese biodiesel from Friday, striking over 40 business including leading manufacturers Zhejiang Jiaao, Henan Junheng and Longyan Zhuoyue Group in an export organization that deserved $2.3 billion in 2015.

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

Exports to the bloc have actually fallen dramatically given that mid-2023 amidst investigations. Volumes in the very first six months of this year plunged 51% from a year earlier to 567,440 heaps, Chinese customizeds information revealed.

June shipments diminished to just over 50,000 tons, the lowest because mid-2019, according to custom-mades information.

At their peak, exports to the EU reached a record 1.8 million loads 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 shipments to the EU, followed by Belgium and Spain, Chinese customs figures showed.

Chinese manufacturers of biodiesel have delighted in fat revenues in current years, taking advantage of the EU's green energy policy that gives subsidies to business that are using biodiesel as a sustainable transport fuel such as Repsol, Shell and Neste.

Many of China's biodiesel producers are privately-run little plants using ratings of waste oil gathered from millions of Chinese dining establishments. Before the biodiesel export boom, they were making lower-value products like soaps and processing leather products.

However, the boom was temporary. The EU started in August last year investigating Indonesian biodiesel that was thought of preventing responsibilities 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 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 need for the Chinese supply.

"With hefty rates of UCO partly supported by strong U.S. and European demand, and free-falling product prices, business are having a bumpy ride surviving," stated Gary Shan, chief marketing officer of Henan Junheng.

Prices of hydrotreated vegetable oil, or HVO, a main type of biodiesel, have actually cut in half versus last year's average to the existing $1,200 to $1,300 per metric ton and are off a peak of $3,000 in 2022, Shan added.

With low rates, biodiesel plants have actually cut their operations to an all-time low 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 predict are set to touch a brand-new high this year. UCO exports soared by two-thirds year-on-year in the very first half of 2024 to 1.41 million loads, with the United States, Singapore and the Netherlands the top destinations.

OUTLETS

While lots of smaller plants are most likely to shutter production indefinitely, bigger producers like Zhejiang Jiaao, Leoking Enviro Group and Longyan Zhuoyue are checking out 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.

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

Companies would also speed up preparation and building of sustainable air travel fuel (SAF) plants, executives said. China is anticipated to reveal an SAF mandate before completion of 2024.

They have likewise been hunting 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 included.

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