Indonesia exported the first ever sizeable volume of used cooking oil (UCO) to the US in February.
It shipped close to 5,000t of UCO to the US in February after exporting a yearly average of about 300t during 2018-2022, according to GTT data.
The Traces-NT issue in January likely spurred Indonesian sellers to seek buyers outside of Europe for their inventories. The Traces-NT system is the EU's platform for certifying imports of animals, animal products, food and feed and plants into the bloc. But this stifled trade as many suppliers were not informed of the new requirements and must obtain veterinary certificates to prove that their UCO is entirely of vegetable origin, which could be a lengthy process.
The premium of UCO US Gulf coast delivered to UCO fob strait of Malacca for December 2022-January 2023 was also largely stable with an average daily premium of about $559/t. This could also have made Indonesian UCO attractive to US buyers since the volumes were much more competitively priced but were waiting to be sold.
Indonesian sellers were also starting to overcome the regulatory barriers such as acquiring the veterinary permits needed to import UCO to the US that confronted Chinese suppliers. Government veterinary permits issued by the exporting country, certifying the cargo has not been mixed with animal-origin material, are needed to import UCO to the US.
Malaysia bought the most Indonesian UCO at around 8,800t, as the waste biodiesel feedstock is usually consolidated in the country before being shipped overseas. Singapore bought about 7,100t.
February UCO exports increased by around 46pc from the previous month to 23,300t. Exports during January-February increased by about 31pc from the same period in 2022 to 39,300t.
February biodiesel exports were also up on the previous month by about 61pc to around 64,000t. But exports during January-February increased nearly tenfold compared with the same period last year.
China was the biggest biodiesel buyer, purchasing nearly 54,500t, possibly spurred by demand for discretionary blending. The Netherlands was a distant second buying about 6,700t, while the Philippines was next with imports of 3,000t.
| Indonesia biofuels, feedstock exports (t) | ||||||||
| Feb '23 | Jan'23 | ± m-o-m | Feb '22 | ± y-o-y | Jan-Feb 2023 | Jan-Feb 2022 | % ± y-o-y | |
| Exports | ||||||||
| Biodiesel | 64,228 | 39,868 | 61.1% | 7,425 | 765.0% | 104,096 | 10,827 | 861% |
| UCO | 23,268 | 15,986 | 45.6% | 7,400 | 214.4% | 39,254 | 30,018 | 30.8% |
| Source: GTT | ||||||||
