U.S. imports of Chinese used cooking oil set for new record, future uncertain
U.S. imports of used cooking oil (UCO) from China are set to hit a record in the months ahead, even as regulatory uncertainty casts doubts over longer-term prospects of a trade that boomed last year, according to market participants.
U.S. demand for UCO, a feedstock for biofuels like renewable diesel, has surged as federal and state governments launched incentives to support the industry as they aim to decarbonize transportation. That sparked such a frenzied rush to build new renewable diesel plants that U.S. capacity more than doubled from 2021 to 282,000 bpd in 2023, according to government data.
The rapid surge flipped the U.S. from a net exporter of UCO until 2021 to a net importer since 2022. U.S. imports surpassed 1.36 metric MMt last year, up from about 400,000 MMt in 2022, the data showed.
"Demand for UCO from U.S. renewable diesel producers has grown much faster than domestic supply," said Duane Dunlap, owner of renewables consultancy DNS Enterprises.
The supply gap has been readily filled by Chinese exporters, who needed a new outlet as demand from their top buyers in Europe shrank from mid-2023 amid complaints of artificially low prices that led to a European Union investigation. The EU began imposing tariffs on Chinese biodiesel imports this month.
Imports from China made up half of all the UCO purchased by U.S. refiners last year, compared to a 0.1% share in 2022, customs data showed. This year through June, China accounted for roughly 60% of the roughly 1 metric MMt of UCO imported by the U.S., the data showed.
EU tariffs will likely lift UCO shipments from China to the U.S. even further in the months ahead, two senior biofuel traders in Singapore said.
"If it is not wanted in Europe, they will send it to the U.S.," said Adam Schubert, senior associate at fuel consultancy Stillwater Associates.
Mixed demand signals. The U.S. biofuels market is set to undergo major changes next year as the government prepares to transition from a program that rewards producers based on output volumes to a qualitative system that will award tax credits based on the fuel's carbon intensity.
Since UCO is otherwise a waste product, its carbon footprint is lower than alternative biodiesel feedstocks, such as soybean oil and canola oil. That makes UCO more attractive for producers.
However, lobbyists representing U.S. farm-states have called for an extension of the existing tax credits as prices for their commodities have slumped under the weight of lower-cost UCO imports. A bipartisan bill to extend the volume-based system through next year was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives last month.
Similar efforts have resulted in multiple extensions of the current system over the past decade. The credits were set to expire at the end of 2022, before the Inflation Reduction Act extended them through the end of this year.
Farmers' groups and lawmakers have also raised concerns over allegations that some Chinese UCO supply could be tainted with virgin palm oil, a product linked to deforestation.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed earlier this month that it has been auditing supply chains of at least two U.S. renewable fuel producers amid concerns of fraudulent feedstock usage.
U.S. trade policy could also shift dramatically following the November presidential election in the country, which is creating uncertainty for Chinese UCO exporters, one of the Singapore-based traders said.
Aside from the recent boom in UCO trade, other relations between the world's two biggest economies have been increasingly strained in recent years. Both sides have lobbed tit-for-tat tariffs on each other's imports since 2017.
Republican nominee Donald Trump's vice presidential running mate J.D. Vance last month called China the “biggest threat” facing the United States.
Another major upheaval for the global UCO trade will come from Beijing's widely anticipated announcement of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production targets. Since SAF also uses UCO as a feedstock, China's push into that market could dry up its UCO export capacity in about five years, one of the traders in Singapore said.
"There is a lot of uncertainty right now surrounding future policymaking, but as long as the U.S. does not ban it—which we see as unlikely in the short-term—UCO imports will grow," said Zander Capozzola, vice president of renewable fuels at AEGIS Hedging.
"It's just a question of where these imports will come from."
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