Malaysian used cooking oil (UCO) imports hit an all-time record high of 67,000t in June and 283,000t over the first six months of this year, based on GTT data.
The purchases supplemented local biodiesel production and rode on strong upward momentum in exports as the country continued its role as a regional bulking hub for the product to Europe.
Indonesia doubled its sales to Malaysia during the first six months of the year to 79,000t, though supplies from China more than halved on the year to 54,000t.
Vietnam, Thailand and Japan all saw exponential growth in sales to Malaysia. Vietnamese sales rose to 34,000t from 10,000t, Thailand to 28,000t from 2,000t, and Japan 14,000t from 2,000t.
Malaysia remained a net UCO importer in June, bringing in 9,000t more than it sold for a second successive month, though it still had a positive trade balance for the first half of 2021 at 27,000t compared with net zero a year earlier.
June sales were around 42pc higher than May at 58,000t and January-June exports rose by 58pc from a year earlier to a record high of 310,000t.
The Netherlands, Singapore and the UK were its three biggest customers, taking 121,000t, 93,000t and 55,000t respectively.
For the Netherlands, this was double the amount from the same period last year and an 11-fold increase for the UK as more traders diverted regional volumes through Malaysia in bulk rather than direct from source countries in small containers, given spiking flexitank freight costs along these routes over the last year.
Malaysia's January-June biodiesel imports were up by 13pc on the year to 76,000t, of which 54,000t was from Singapore.
June exports of 49,000t were the highest since March 2020, as biodiesel prices in Europe hit all-time highs because of tight supplies and strong feedstock vegetable oil costs. But sales over the first half of the year were still down by 24pc to 151,000t. Spain took 79,000t, the Netherlands 40,000t and China 23,000t.
| Malaysia biodiesel, feedstock imports and exports | t | |||||||
| Jun '21 | May '21 | % ± m-o-m | Jun '20 | % ± y-o-y | Jan-Jun '21 | Jan-Jun '20 | % ± y-o-y | |
| Exports | ||||||||
| Biodiesel | 48,524 | 19,735 | 145.9 | 20,014 | 142.5 | 150,967 | 199,920 | -24.5 |
| UCO | 58,000 | 40,986 | 41.5 | 46,379 | 25.1 | 310,261 | 196,311 | 58 |
| Imports | ||||||||
| Biodiesel | 8,099 | 8,124 | 0 | 14,171 | -42.8 | 76,397 | 67,712 | 12.8 |
| UCO | 67,369 | 50,135 | 34.4 | 50,913 | 32.3 | 283,404 | 196,988 | 43.9 |
| Source: GTT | ||||||||
