By Chen Aizhu

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

The EU will impose provisionary anti-dumping duties of between 12.8% and 36.4% on Chinese biodiesel from Friday, hitting over 40 companies consisting of leading Jiaao, Henan Junheng and Longyan Zhuoyue Group in an export service that was worth $2.3 billion last year.

Some bigger manufacturers are considering the marine fuel market in China and Singapore, the world's top marine fuel hub, as they seek to offset currently falling biodiesel exports to the EU, biofuel executives said.

Exports to the bloc have fallen sharply considering that mid-2023 amidst examinations. Volumes in the very first six months of this year plunged 51% from a year earlier to 567,440 loads, Chinese custom-mades information revealed.

June deliveries diminished to just over 50,000 heaps, the most affordable because mid-2019, according to customizeds data.

At their peak, exports to the EU reached 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 shipments to the EU, followed by Belgium and Spain, Chinese customizeds figures showed.

Chinese manufacturers of biodiesel have actually taken pleasure in fat earnings in the last few 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 manufacturers are privately-run little plants employing ratings of workers processing waste oil collected from millions of Chinese dining establishments. Before the biodiesel export boom, they were making lower-value items like soaps and processing leather items.

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

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

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

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

With low costs, biodiesel plants have actually cut their operations to an all-time low of under 20% of existing capacity usually 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 boosting 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 leading locations.

OUTLETS

While lots of smaller plants are likely to shutter production forever, larger producers like Zhejiang Jiaao, Leoking Enviro Group and Longyan Zhuoyue are checking out brand-new outlets including the marine fuel market in your home and in the crucial 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 planning and structure of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plants, executives said. China is expected to reveal an SAF mandate before completion of 2024.

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

(Reporting by Chen Aizhu