Was 2024 Peak Year for Conventional Biofuels? Insights from Palm Oil Conference 2025
The global biofuels landscape is fundamentally recalibrating, with a pronounced shift toward domestic sourcing of waste oils across mandated markets. Recent trade restrictions on UCO flows from China to the US, coupled with potential similar measures in Europe, are forcing a structural reorganization of supply chains that prioritizes local collection networks. Meanwhile, the strategic exemption of SAF feedstocks from China-EU restrictions signals that co-processing capacity emerging in Europe and the Middle East will likely satisfy Europe's SAF mandate without significant additional infrastructure. Despite production challenges forecasted for non-soy oilseeds in 2025, the overall global vegetable oil market appears well-positioned to meet biodiesel and renewable diesel production needs, particularly as fulfillment of these mandates faces substantial reduction in key markets like the USwhere policy shifts have already disrupted traditional market dynamics. The convergence of these factors suggests that 2024 may well have represented the peak year for conventional biodiesel and renewable diesel expansion, with 2025 marking the beginning of a more restrained growth trajectory focused on optimization rather than capacity expansion.
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