Neha: Hello and welcome to this Argus Media podcast on the impacts of the EU Deforestation Regulation on the oleochemicals and biofuels markets. My name is Neha Popat, editor on the Argus Oleochemicals team.
Carolina: And I am Carolina Palma, senior reporter for oleochemicals. Joining us today is Dr. Julian McGill, founder of Glenauk Economics. Welcome, Julian.
Dr. McGill: Thank you, Carolina. Thank you, Neha. It's nice to be here.
Carolina: First, a bit of background on the EUDR, in June 2023, the regulation on deforestation-free products entered into force. The main driver of deforestation is the expansion of agricultural land that is linked to the production of commodities. The EUDR applies to an extensive list of products made from commodities associated with deforestation. The list includes palm oil. Under the regulation, which was due to come into effect on 30 December this year, any operator or trader who places these commodities on the EU market or exports from it must be able to prove that the products do not originate from recently deforested land or have contributed to forest degradation. To be compliant, companies will need to conduct extensive due diligence on the value chain of relevant commodities and products, involving measures such as verifying the origin of commodities, making sure that suppliers meet environmental and social regulation and implement traceability systems to track products from farm to market. Without a due diligence statement confirming due diligence has been conducted with no risk of deforestation or non-compliance, products cannot be sold in or exported from the EU market.
Neha: Since its announcement, the law has been met with backlash, not only from major palm exporters, Indonesia and Malaysia, but also European parliaments and agricultural ministers who have warned of its complexity and likely negative impacts on global trade. Price increases resulting from the EUDR will burden not only EU consumers who are already strained by inflation and geopolitical instability, but also smallholders who do not have the resources to be able to provide geolocation data, many companies have argued. Now, just recently, the European Commission has proposed delaying the EUDR by 12 months following lobbying by companies and governments around the world. EU diplomats have agreed on a targeted amendment to delay application of the bloc's deforestation regulation by 12 months. The delay now needs to be approved by the European parliaments to take effect and needs to be voted through in November. If this is approved, the law would come into force on 30th December 2025 for large companies and 30th of June 2026 for micro and small enterprises. Julian, for companies in Europe, how do you feel this latest announcement by the EC is going to impact on negotiations for buyers who import these products that fall under the regulation?
Dr. McGill: Thank you, Neha. So the issue here is that of course we're very, very close to the original date by which the EUDR was meant to be enacted. So most companies should have, although we know not all companies had, looked into securing feedstocks that were EUDR-compliant. That means that in many cases, at least for the first quarter of next year, they had already entered into negotiations. Now, not all negotiations had agreed on premiums yet. And what we're hearing is that those who had are essentially honouring the premiums that they had agreed to pay earlier.
Why are they doing it? Well, one reason of course is that even if the EUDR is delayed by a year, they will still need suppliers in a year's time. And if they don't honor the contracts now, they may find that the companies from which they've been buying remember that in a year's time and won't supply them. The other companies that hadn't negotiated yet on the premium, of course, are now have seen their position strengthened. That is that in all likelihood, they can assume that if they have another year, they'll be able to negotiate no premium or a much lower premium. However, bearing in mind that in the end, there will be relatively few suppliers, certainly of palm kernel oil, would be well advised not to play too hardball at this stage so that a year from now they're not in a position where they can't find suppliers.
Carolina: Thank you, Julian. Now, looking at the palm market in particular, if the EU does decide to go ahead with this delay, then do you think it's likely we could see palm suppliers in Southeast Asia reducing prices as they try to sell material into Europe before the EUDR law comes into effect?
Dr. McGill: Thank you, Carolina. It's very interesting, you know, this potential delay, the news was first leaked. It was the 2nd of October, I remember, here in Southeast Asia it was in the evening, so our markets had already closed, but we started getting the WhatsApps, the usual WhatsApps, suggesting that there was some news around the delay and then this was all officially confirmed. It was very interesting the next day to look at what happened in the markets. Almost nothing happened. In effect, prices barely took any notice at all. In fact, if you look at the commodities that are covered by the EUDR, you mentioned them at the start, if you look at cocoa, coffee, rubber, palm kernel oil, palm oil, really the only one to have seen any impact on the price was rubber and that was probably due to unrelated issues. There was some bearish news out of China that we believe pushed down the rubber price.
So the markets didn't take any notice whatsoever of the gossip, maybe they didn't believe it yet, but it does suggest that the market doesn't really think the EUDR is influencing the fundamentals and I think they're probably right in that regard. We've already seen very large shipments of palm kernel oil out of Indonesia and Malaysia, much larger than usual, which are clearly being stocked in Rotterdam in Europe where companies have built additional storage capacity. So we've certainly seen it here. If we look at local delivered prices in Malaysia, they've gone up, particularly if you look at the premium of local delivered prices of Rotterdam over local delivered prices, they've gone up quite a lot, which suggests that there's been a big pull to try and get oil from here into Europe. The thing is that whether the oil is stored in the originating countries or at destination doesn't really make that big a difference. The oil is still there and I think that's really the view the market is taking, that regardless of whether the stocks are built up in Rotterdam or here, it doesn't really matter that much.
Now towards the end, we're already at the point now where basically we're at the deadline for shipping into Europe, so I don't really see much selling pressure from Southeast Asia into Europe, regardless of what happens with the EUDR. But I think the other point that we have to make here is that if the EUDR had been implemented, say, 10 years ago when palm production was still growing at a very fast pace, when there was a lot of planting of oil palm and the EU was a major buyer of palm oil as well as its derivatives, then almost certainly any news out of Europe would have a big impact. But today, when we look at the supplies out of Southeast Asia, in Malaysia the impressive yield recovery this year has essentially petered out, so we're now looking at production that's more or less flat. And in Indonesia, the output this year has been particularly weak, it's been a decline, and the peak has really not come yet. So there's not much selling pressure from Indonesian companies and we see it, particularly if you look also at the export taxes in Indonesia that you know they move around the export taxes. Right now, because next month's export tax will increase, we should see big selling pressure out of Indonesia and we're not seeing it. So that suggests that the supply simply isn't there. So I think whether or not the EUDR goes ahead will have very little impact actually on the pricing out of Southeast Asia.
Neha: Okay, interesting, thanks a lot, Julian. I was just looking at the latest FAQ document which was obviously produced quite late and in it, it notes that the regulation applies only to products listed in annex one and that products not included in annex one are not subject to the requirements of the regulation even if they contain relevant commodities in scope of the regulation. For example, soap will not be covered by the regulation even if this contains palm oil. So in your opinion, if this goes ahead, do you feel that companies could look to produce the final product elsewhere and just import this into Europe perhaps, and how could this impact on the European economy?
Dr. McGill: Companies certainly are looking at that. Soap is an interesting one in that much of the soap noodles that come into Europe are already manufactured overseas. I mean, in general, there has been a shift towards production from Southeast Asia in a lot of these areas already. I think the one that really matters in this is fatty alcohol and there's two reasons for that. One is that we know there is a tightness around palm kernel oil because the EU's requirements in palm kernel oil are relative to the requirements in palm oil much much greater. So the EU is a relatively important buyer of palm kernel oil still but in palm oil, not so much, which means that because palm kernel oil is the co-product produced from palm oil, it's difficult to convince sufficient companies to produce EUDR-compliant PKO. Now, that creates a problem for fatty alcohol producers who are based on palm kernel oil and of course palm fatty alcohol and palm kernel oil are both covered by the EUDR.
Fatty alcohol ethoxylates and sulfonates are currently not covered by the EUDR. So I think the really big question once the EUDR eventually becomes enacted is whether we will see a shift towards importing of the ethoxylates or sulfonates, and the truth is of course that almost all fatty alcohol is ethoxylated or sulfonated. So in the end you could see a world in which...and there is additional ethoxylation capacity in places like China, there's a little bit here in Singapore, and well as in Malaysia. So you could see a shift towards that. That will mean that from a buyer's perspective in Europe you're in a very odd position. On the one hand, I suspect almost all buyers are opposed to the EUDR on the principle that the law is not very well thought out. On the other hand, they will now need to see it expanded in order to cover these products. And I note that in the original EUDR legislation, there was this idea that by June of next year, I guess it'll now be June of 2026, they will look at certain HS codes and whether to add them. The one they mention is a methyl ester but I am certain they would also look at ethoxylates or sulfonates as a way of covering those and giving companies within Europe a fighting chance.
Carolina: Thank you so much, Julian, that's really interesting. Well, thank you, Julian, for joining us today for this discussion on the EUDR and thank you all for listening. If you have any further questions or would like any information on the Argus Oleochemicals Report, then please email [email protected]. Goodbye.