By Chen Aizhu

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

The EU will impose provisionary anti-dumping tasks of 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 company that was worth $2.3 billion in 2015.

Some larger producers are eyeing the marine fuel market in China and Singapore, the world's leading marine fuel center, as they seek to balance out already falling biodiesel exports to the EU, biofuel executives said.

Exports to the bloc have actually fallen greatly because mid-2023 in the middle of investigations. Volumes in the first 6 months of this year plunged 51% from a year previously to 567,440 tons, Chinese customs data showed.

June shipments diminished to simply over 50,000 lots, the most affordable given that mid-2019, according to custom-mades information.

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 leading importer in 2023, taking in 84% of China's biodiesel shipments to the EU, followed by Belgium and Spain, Chinese customizeds figures showed.

Chinese manufacturers of biodiesel have delighted in fat revenues recently, making the many of the EU's green energy policy that approves aids to business that are utilizing biodiesel as a sustainable transportation fuel such as Repsol, Shell and Neste.

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

However, the boom was short-lived. The EU began in August in 2015 examining Indonesian biodiesel that was presumed of preventing responsibilities 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 used cooking oil (UCO), raising prices of the feedstock, while costs of biodiesel sank in view of shrinking need for the Chinese supply.

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

Prices of hydrotreated vegetable oil, or HVO, a primary type of biodiesel, have actually halved 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 included.

With low rates, biodiesel plants have cut their operations to an all-time low of under 20% of existing capacity usually in July, down from 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 analysts anticipate 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 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 crucial center of Singapore, which is utilizing more biodiesel for ship fuel blending, according to the biofuel executives.

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

Companies would likewise speed up preparation and structure of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plants, executives stated. China is expected to announce an SAF required before the end of 2024.

They have also been searching for 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 included.

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