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

The EU will impose provisionary anti-dumping tasks of in between 12.8% and 36.4% on Chinese biodiesel from Friday, hitting over 40 companies including leading manufacturers Zhejiang Jiaao, Henan Junheng and Longyan Zhuoyue Group in an export service 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 center, as they look for to balance out currently falling biodiesel exports to the EU, biofuel executives said.

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

June shipments shrank to just over 50,000 heaps, the most affordable since mid-2019, according to customizeds 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 top importer in 2023, soaking in 84% of China's biodiesel shipments to the EU, followed by Belgium and Spain, Chinese custom-mades figures revealed.

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

Much of China's biodiesel manufacturers are privately-run little plants employing ratings of workers processing waste oil collected from millions of 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 started in August last year examining 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 believed to be priced synthetically low and undercutting regional producers.

Anticipating the tariffs, traders stocked up on utilized cooking oil (UCO), lifting prices of the feedstock, while costs of biodiesel sank in view of diminishing demand for the Chinese supply.

"With hefty prices of UCO partially supported by strong U.S. and European need, and free-falling product prices, 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 type of biodiesel, have actually 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 costs, biodiesel plants have actually cut their operations to a lowest level 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, diminishing biodiesel sales are enhancing China's UCO exports, which experts forecast are set to touch a new high this year. UCO exports skyrocketed by two-thirds year-on-year in the very 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 sized plants are likely to shutter production forever, bigger manufacturers like Zhejiang Jiaao, Leoking Enviro Group and Longyan Zhuoyue are checking out new outlets consisting of the marine fuel market in the house and in the crucial hub of Singapore, which is utilizing more biodiesel for ship fuel mixing, according to the biofuel executives.

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

Companies would also accelerate preparation and structure of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plants, executives said. China is expected to announce an SAF mandate before completion of 2024.

They have likewise been searching for new biodiesel customers outside the EU bloc, in Australia, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia where there are local requireds for the alternative fuel, the authorities added.

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