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 said.

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

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

Exports to the bloc have fallen sharply since mid-2023 in the middle of investigations. Volumes in the first six months of this year plunged 51% from a year previously to 567,440 heaps, Chinese custom-mades information revealed.

June shipments diminished to simply over 50,000 tons, the most affordable since mid-2019, according to customs information.

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, soaking in 84% of China's biodiesel deliveries to the EU, followed by Belgium and Spain, Chinese customs figures revealed.

Chinese producers of biodiesel have actually taken pleasure in fat profits in current years, taking advantage of the EU's green energy policy that grants subsidies to companies that are using biodiesel as a sustainable transportation fuel such as Repsol, Shell and Neste.

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

However, the boom was temporary. The EU started in August in 2015 investigating Indonesian biodiesel that was thought 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 shrinking need for the Chinese supply.

"With large costs of UCO partly supported by strong U.S. and European demand, and free-falling product costs, business are having a difficult time making it through," said Gary Shan, chief marketing officer of Henan Junheng.

Prices of hydrotreated vegetable oil, 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 heap and are off a peak of $3,000 in 2022, Shan added.

With low prices, biodiesel plants have cut their operations to an all-time low of under 20% of existing capacity typically in July, down from 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 heaps, 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, larger manufacturers like Zhejiang Jiaao, Leoking Enviro Group and Longyan Zhuoyue are exploring brand-new outlets consisting of the marine fuel market in the house and in the important center of Singapore, which is utilizing more biodiesel for ship fuel blending, according to the biofuel executives.

One of the producers, Longyan Zhuoyue, agreed in January with COSCO Shipping to utilize more biodiesel in marine fuel.

Companies would likewise speed up planning and structure of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plants, executives said. China is anticipated to announce an SAF mandate before completion of 2024.

They have likewise been searching for brand-new biodiesel clients 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)