By Chen Aizhu

SINGAPORE, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Chinese biodiesel manufacturers are seeking brand-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 consisting of leading manufacturers Zhejiang Jiaao, Henan Junheng and Longyan Zhuoyue Group in an export business that was worth $2.3 billion in 2015.

Some larger producers are considering the marine fuel market in China and Singapore, the world's top 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 because 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 customs information revealed.

June deliveries diminished to just over 50,000 tons, the most affordable because 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 enjoyed fat earnings recently, making the most of the EU's green energy policy that approves aids to business that are utilizing biodiesel as a sustainable transport fuel such as Repsol, Shell and Neste.

Many of China's biodiesel manufacturers are privately-run little plants using ratings of workers processing waste oil gathered from countless Chinese dining establishments. Before the biodiesel export boom, they were making lower-value products like soaps and processing leather items.

However, the boom was brief. The EU began in August in 2015 examining Indonesian biodiesel that was presumed of circumventing 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 producers.

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

"With large rates of UCO partially supported by strong U.S. and European need, and free-falling product costs, business are having a difficult time surviving," said Gary Shan, primary marketing officer of Henan Junheng.

Prices of hydrotreated grease, or HVO, a primary kind of biodiesel, have actually halved versus last year's average to the present $1,200 to $1,300 per metric ton 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 capacity 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 boosting China's UCO exports, which analysts forecast are set to touch a brand-new high this year. UCO exports soared by two-thirds year-on-year in the very first half of 2024 to 1.41 million loads, with the United States, Singapore and the Netherlands the leading locations.

OUTLETS

While lots of smaller plants are likely to shutter production indefinitely, bigger producers like Zhejiang Jiaao, Leoking Enviro Group and Longyan Zhuoyue are exploring brand-new outlets including the marine fuel market at home and in the crucial center of Singapore, which is using more biodiesel for ship fuel mixing, according to the biofuel executives.

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

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

They have also been scouting for brand-new biodiesel customers outside the EU bloc, in Australia, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia where there are local mandates for the alternative fuel, the authorities included.

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