By Chen Aizhu

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

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

Some larger producers are eyeing 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 stated.

Exports to the bloc have fallen dramatically considering that mid-2023 amidst investigations. Volumes in the very first six months of this year plunged 51% from a year previously to 567,440 tons, Chinese customizeds information revealed.

June deliveries diminished to just over 50,000 heaps, the least expensive considering that 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, taking in 84% of China's biodiesel shipments to the EU, followed by Belgium and Spain, Chinese customs figures showed.

Chinese producers of biodiesel have delighted in fat profits recently, making the many of the EU's green energy policy that grants subsidies to companies that are using biodiesel as a sustainable transport fuel such as Repsol, Shell and Neste.

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

However, the boom was brief. The EU started in August last year investigating Indonesian biodiesel that was believed of circumventing 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 undercutting regional manufacturers.

Anticipating the tariffs, traders equipped up on used cooking oil (UCO), raising prices of the feedstock, while rates of biodiesel sank in view of diminishing need for the Chinese supply.

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

Prices of hydrotreated vegetable oil, or HVO, a main type of biodiesel, have cut in half 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 added.

With low rates, biodiesel plants have cut their operations to an all-time low of under 20% of existing capacity 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 increasing China's UCO exports, which analysts 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 tons, with the United States, Singapore and the Netherlands the top destinations.

OUTLETS

While many smaller plants are likely to shutter production indefinitely, bigger manufacturers like Zhejiang Jiaao, Leoking Enviro Group and Longyan Zhuoyue are checking out brand-new outlets consisting of the marine fuel market in your home and in the essential hub of Singapore, which is utilizing more biodiesel for ship fuel mixing, according to the biofuel executives.

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

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

They have likewise been searching 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 included.

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