China's HVO exports overtake biodiesel for first time in May
China’s HVO exports hit 43,500 metric tons in May, edging past biodiesel for the first time as Europe kept taking most shipments.
China in May 2026 exported about 43,500 metric tons of HVO, overtaking about 38,500 metric tons of biodiesel for the first time on record. Prima CarbonZero data show biodiesel shipments fell more than 52% from April while HVO rose 11.5% month on month.
The monthly crossover came even though biodiesel still led the January-to-May period, with China shipping 353,500 metric tons of biodiesel and 215,000 metric tons of HVO. HVO’s share of China’s combined biofuel exports climbed from 21% in January to 53% in May.
Europe remained the main outlet for both products. Nearly 90% of China’s HVO exports this year went to Europe, with the Netherlands and Belgium accounting for almost the entire market and the Netherlands taking just over half of year-to-date HVO volumes. Biodiesel flows were more dispersed: Europe absorbed about half of China’s biodiesel exports in the first five months of 2026, the Netherlands was the largest customer, and Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Germany also took meaningful volumes.
The European Union’s 2024 provisional anti-dumping duties on Chinese biodiesel and HVO set rates of 23.7% to 36.4% and were due to take effect on Aug. 16, 2024. Reuters' figures put the range at 12.8% to 36.4% across more than 40 companies in a trade worth $2.3 billion in the prior year, and Chinese biodiesel exports to the EU reached a record 1.8 million tons in 2023, with the Netherlands taking 84% of those shipments. In the first six months of 2024, those exports fell 51% from a year earlier to 567,440 tons, and June 2024 shipments were just over 50,000 tons, the lowest since mid-2019.
Gary Shan, chief marketing officer at Henan Junheng, said producers were struggling under high used cooking oil costs and falling product prices as EU trade barriers tightened. USDA Foreign Agricultural Service data show China’s biofuels sector has become largely export-oriented, with a national average ethanol blend rate of about 2.1% in 2025 and domestic biodiesel consumption of 750 million liters. Roughly 80% of China’s biodiesel output had gone to the EU before the anti-dumping measures disrupted the flow, while a USDA-based 2024 report put China’s installed biodiesel capacity at 4 billion liters across 48 plants and its HDRD capacity at 2.5 billion liters across 14 facilities. OFI Magazine's USDA-based tally put China at 3 billion liters a year of HVO capacity, with another 1.2 billion liters a year planned.
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