By Chen Aizhu

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

The EU will enforce provisional anti-dumping responsibilities 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 business that was worth $2.3 billion in 2015.

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

Exports to the bloc have fallen greatly since mid-2023 in the middle of examinations. Volumes in the very first 6 months of this year plunged 51% from a year previously to 567,440 tons, Chinese custom-mades data revealed.

June shipments shrank to just over 50,000 loads, the least expensive given that mid-2019, according to customs 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 custom-mades figures revealed.

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

Many of China's biodiesel manufacturers are privately-run small plants using ratings of employees processing waste oil gathered 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 brief. The EU started in August last year investigating Indonesian biodiesel that was presumed of preventing responsibilities by going through China and Britain, followed by a 14-month anti-dumping probe into Chinese biodiesel thought to be priced artificially low and undercutting regional producers.

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

"With significant rates of UCO partially supported by strong U.S. and European need, and free-falling product rates, business are having a difficult time making it through," stated Gary Shan, chief marketing officer of Henan Junheng.

Prices of hydrotreated grease, or HVO, a primary type of biodiesel, have actually cut in half versus in 2015's average to the present $1,200 to $1,300 per metric lot and are off a peak of $3,000 in 2022, Shan added.

With low costs, biodiesel plants have cut their operations to a lowest level of under 20% of existing capacity on 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 improving China's UCO exports, which experts anticipate 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 loads, with the United States, Singapore and the Netherlands the leading destinations.

OUTLETS

While lots of smaller sized plants are most likely to shutter production forever, bigger manufacturers like Zhejiang Jiaao, Leoking Enviro Group and Longyan Zhuoyue are checking out new outlets consisting of the marine fuel market at home and in the important 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 accelerate preparation and building of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plants, executives stated. China is expected to announce an SAF required before completion of 2024.

They have actually also been scouting for brand-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 added.

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