According to China Custom’s newly released export data, the export quantity in March still maintained at high level. China has seen the best quarterly result ever in Q1-23 for both FAME and HVO.
UCO
- In Q1-23, a total quantity of 434 KT of UCO was exported, 24% higher than Q1-22.
- The quantity that exported in March was 157 KT, up 7% compared to March 2022.
- US has become the biggest importer, with 124 KT (28%) of UCO imported, Singapore was the second, at 95 KT (22%), and Spain was in the third place with 46 KT (11%). In Q1-23, all European countries have imported 34% of the total.
- The top 3 Chinese export regions: Shanghai (29%), Hainan (12%), and Tianjin (9%).
FAME
- A total quantity of 670 KT was exported in Q1-23, almost the double of that in Q1-22.
- According to our database, the quantity exported in Q1-23 corresponds to 85% of the quarterly capacity of all FAME producers in China, estimated at 770 KT/y.
- In March 2023, the FAME export has increased 87% to 215 KT, the second highest in history.
- With a ratio of 98% of the total flow, Europe was still the leading destination. The 3 countries with the most imports are: the Netherlands (82%), Belgium (7%), and Spain (6%).
- The top 3 export provinces: Hainan (31%), Fujian (19%), and Zhejiang (12%).
- A source in China indicated that Chinese FAME producers are currently highly impacted by the issue of fraud. Also, many plants have stopped producing due to a lack of orders and low offer prices. Consequently, the FAME export data in Q2-23 should be much lower.
HVO
- The HVO industry is expanding rapidly in China, adding 2 more HS codes* used by two other companies for HVO exports: The first one, 27101929, is used by Henan Junheng Biology Co., which started exporting in Q4-22; The second one, 27101994, is used by Haixin Energy; it was idle for a long time and restarted exporting in late 2022.
- In Q1-23, a total quantity of 131 KT of HVO was exported, almost 3 times higher than in Q1-22, a new record.
- In March 2023, 46 KT of HVO was exported — 4 times higher than in March 2022.
- The 3 biggest importers are: the Netherlands (59%), Belgium (34%) and UK (5%).
- The 3 main HVO exporting provinces are: Jiangsu (61%), Henan (21%) and Shandong (19%). We will keep completing our list of HVO HS codes when more plants start the production.
*There is no national standard for HVO in China currently, different companies have different definitions to their product so that they can use different HS codes. The one we’ve been using, 15162000, stands for “vegetable fats and oils partly or wholly hydrogenated”, it is used by Eco Environmental which has started exporting steadily since 2018. The newly added 2 codes, 27101929 signifies “other diesel oils and other fuel oils”, 27101994 signifies “liquid paraffin and heavy liquid paraffin”, they were recently detected because companies using these 2 codes have started exporting recently. It is also important to note that the HS code 38260000 may also contains a small quantity of HVO, because Chinese producers do call HVO as biodiesel of 2ndgeneration.
