The waste feedstock map looks like it's being redrawn. Whether it's actually redrawn is a different question.
Start with what the customs record shows. US imports of used cooking oil fell 38 percent year on year. Chinese origin volume collapsed by 67 percent. Malaysia and Vietnam picked up some of it, but not all, so total imported UCO supply into the US shrank.
The molecules didn't vanish. China's total UCO exports actually rose 7 percent over the same stretch. What changed was the address. Shipments to the US fell 61 percent. Shipments to the Netherlands more than doubled, making it China's single largest destination.
That looks like a clean reroute. Here's why it might not be.
The economics behind the shift
Imported feedstock doesn't earn the 45Z production credit. That leaves it leaning on RIN and LCFS value alone, with no third leg underneath it.
The result shows up in delivered cost. Chinese UCO now lands at roughly 669 cents per gallon. That's the most expensive feedstock on the American board. Above soybean oil at 566. Above domestic tallow at 615. Above the UCO collected from restaurants down the street at 604.
When your imported barrel is the priciest thing in the yard, it stops clearing. Europe doesn't apply the same production credit test, so European buyers can pay up where American buyers won't.
But the cargoes are still arriving
Recent bill of lading data tells a messier story.
On July 18, ISCC-certified UCO arrived in California. And this week, roughly 31,000 metric tons of Chinese UCO arrived for Diamond Green Diesel. Another 17,000 metric tons landed at Baton Rouge in the same week.
That's not the footprint of a market that walked away. That's a market that is still slowly buying.
The California arrival matters most. LCFS credit value can carry an imported barrel on its own, without 45Z. If certified material still pencils into the West Coast, then the reroute isn't about origin. It's about which credit stack you're selling into.
Tallow, meanwhile, holds
US inedible tallow imports were essentially flat, up 1 percent. What moved was the origin mix. Brazil fell 23 percent. Australia rose 24 percent, with the UK and Ireland climbing off small bases.
Tallow keeps coming because tallow is cheap. Brazilian tallow lands around 538 cents per gallon, below soybean oil, with no credit help required. It wins on raw cost.
Brazil is hedging anyway. It opened new flows into the Netherlands and Belgium from a standing start while trade talks with the US stay unsettled.
What to actually watch
The demand pull isn't going anywhere. Biofuel is set to take 53.7 percent of US soybean oil use in 2026/27, up from 40 percent two years ago. That gap has to be filled by something.
So the honest read is this. The reroute is real in the annual data and partial in the weekly data. Chinese UCO is cheaper to place in Rotterdam than in Louisiana, but it hasn't stopped landing in Louisiana.
