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 biggest buyer, dries up ahead of anti-dumping tariffs, biofuel executives and experts said.

The EU will impose provisionary anti-dumping responsibilities of in between 12.8% and 36.4% on Chinese biodiesel from Friday, hitting over 40 companies including leading producers Zhejiang Jiaao, Henan Junheng and Longyan Zhuoyue Group in an export company that deserved $2.3 billion in 2015.

Some larger producers are eyeing the marine fuel market in China and Singapore, the world's leading marine fuel hub, as they look for to balance out already falling biodiesel exports to the EU, biofuel executives stated.

Exports to the bloc have fallen greatly since mid-2023 amidst investigations. Volumes in the very first six months of this year plunged 51% from a year earlier to 567,440 tons, Chinese custom-mades data showed.

June deliveries shrank to simply over 50,000 lots, the most affordable given 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, taking in 84% of China's biodiesel deliveries to the EU, followed by Belgium and Spain, Chinese customizeds figures showed.

Chinese manufacturers of biodiesel have actually delighted in fat revenues recently, maximizing the EU's green energy policy that grants subsidies to business that are using biodiesel as a sustainable transport fuel such as Repsol, Shell and Neste.

A number of China's biodiesel producers are privately-run little plants using ratings of workers processing waste oil collected from millions of Chinese restaurants. Before the biodiesel export boom, they were making lower-value items like soaps and processing leather items.

However, the boom was temporary. The EU began in August in 2015 examining 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 artificially low and damaging regional producers.

Anticipating the tariffs, traders stockpiled on utilized cooking oil (UCO), raising rates of the feedstock, while prices of biodiesel sank in view of diminishing need 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 making it through," said Gary Shan, primary marketing officer of Henan Junheng.

Prices of hydrotreated grease, or HVO, a main kind of biodiesel, have actually cut in half versus in 2015's average to the existing $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 a lowest level of under 20% of existing capability 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 improving China's UCO exports, which experts anticipate are set to touch a brand-new high this year. UCO exports skyrocketed by two-thirds year-on-year in the first half of 2024 to 1.41 million lots, with the United States, Singapore and the Netherlands the top destinations.

OUTLETS

While lots of smaller plants are likely to shutter production indefinitely, bigger manufacturers like Zhejiang Jiaao, Leoking Enviro Group and Longyan Zhuoyue are exploring brand-new outlets including the marine fuel market in the house and in the essential hub of Singapore, which is utilizing more biodiesel for ship fuel blending, according to the biofuel executives.

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

Companies would likewise speed up planning and building of sustainable air travel fuel (SAF) plants, executives stated. China is expected to reveal an SAF required before the end of 2024.

They have actually also been hunting for 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 officials added.

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