By Chen Aizhu

SINGAPORE, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Chinese biodiesel manufacturers are seeking 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 enforce provisionary anti-dumping tasks of in between 12.8% and 36.4% on Chinese biodiesel from Friday, over 40 business consisting of leading producers Zhejiang Jiaao, Henan Junheng and Longyan Zhuoyue Group in an export service that was worth $2.3 billion in 2015.

Some bigger producers are considering the marine fuel market in China and Singapore, the world's leading marine fuel center, as they look for to offset currently falling biodiesel exports to the EU, biofuel executives said.

Exports to the bloc have fallen sharply because mid-2023 amid examinations. Volumes in the very first 6 months of this year plunged 51% from a year earlier to 567,440 loads, Chinese customs data revealed.

June deliveries diminished to simply over 50,000 heaps, the most affordable since mid-2019, according to custom-mades data.

At their peak, exports to the EU reached a record 1.8 million heaps 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 customizeds figures showed.

Chinese manufacturers of biodiesel have taken pleasure in fat earnings in the last few years, making the most of 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.

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

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

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

"With large costs of UCO partly supported by strong U.S. and European need, and free-falling product rates, companies are having a hard time making it through," stated Gary Shan, primary marketing officer of Henan Junheng.

Prices of hydrotreated grease, or HVO, a primary kind of biodiesel, have 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 included.

With low prices, 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 improving China's UCO exports, which experts forecast are set to touch a brand-new high this year. UCO exports skyrocketed by two-thirds year-on-year in the very first half of 2024 to 1.41 million heaps, with the United States, Singapore and the Netherlands the leading locations.

OUTLETS

While lots of smaller sized plants are most likely to shutter production indefinitely, bigger producers like Zhejiang Jiaao, Leoking Enviro Group and Longyan Zhuoyue are checking out brand-new outlets including the marine fuel market at home 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, concurred in January with COSCO Shipping to use more biodiesel in marine fuel.

Companies would also accelerate planning and building of sustainable air travel fuel (SAF) plants, executives said. China is expected to announce an SAF mandate before completion of 2024.

They have likewise been scouting for brand-new biodiesel clients outside the EU bloc, in Australia, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia where there are local mandates for the alternative fuel, the officials added.

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