By Chen Aizhu

SINGAPORE, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Chinese biodiesel manufacturers are looking for 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 provisional anti-dumping responsibilities of between 12.8% and 36.4% on Chinese biodiesel from Friday, striking over 40 business consisting of leading producers Zhejiang Jiaao, Henan Junheng and Longyan Zhuoyue Group in an export organization that was worth $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 currently falling biodiesel exports to the EU, biofuel executives said.

Exports to the bloc have actually fallen dramatically because mid-2023 amid examinations. Volumes in the very first six months of this year plunged 51% from a year earlier to 567,440 lots, Chinese customizeds information revealed.

June shipments shrank to simply over 50,000 heaps, the most affordable considering that mid-2019, according to custom-mades data.

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 top importer in 2023, soaking in 84% of China's biodiesel deliveries to the EU, followed by Belgium and Spain, Chinese custom-mades figures revealed.

Chinese manufacturers of biodiesel have actually taken pleasure in fat profits recently, making the many of the EU's green energy policy that gives subsidies to business that are utilizing biodiesel as a sustainable transportation fuel such as Repsol, Shell and Neste.

A number of China's biodiesel manufacturers are privately-run little plants employing scores of employees processing waste oil collected from countless Chinese dining establishments. Before the biodiesel export boom, they were making lower-value goods like soaps and processing leather products.

However, the boom was short-term. The EU started in August in 2015 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 thought to be priced synthetically low and damaging regional manufacturers.

Anticipating the tariffs, traders stockpiled on used cooking oil (UCO), lifting prices of the feedstock, while rates of biodiesel sank in view of diminishing demand for the Chinese supply.

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

Prices of hydrotreated vegetable oil, or HVO, a primary kind of biodiesel, have halved versus in 2015's average to the current $1,200 to $1,300 per metric load and are off a peak of $3,000 in 2022, Shan included.

With low costs, biodiesel plants have cut their operations to an all-time low of under 20% of existing capability typically 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 enhancing China's UCO exports, which analysts predict are set to touch a new high this year. UCO exports skyrocketed 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 numerous smaller sized plants are likely to shutter production indefinitely, larger 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 important center of Singapore, which is utilizing more biodiesel for ship fuel mixing, according to the biofuel executives.

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

Companies would likewise speed up planning and structure of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plants, executives said. China is expected to announce an SAF required before the end 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 mandates for the alternative fuel, the authorities included.

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