November 28, 2023 By Dr. Adam Schubert In our recent article, “A Tale of Two RINs,” we reviewed current conditions driving the price of D3 renewable identification numbers (RINs) upwards while the price of D4 RINs is falling. This article drew considerable interest. With respect to our analysis of the D4 RIN market, one of...
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On November 16, 2023 Stillwater Senior Associate Dr. Adam Schubert presented Decarbonizing ICEVs –A Key Step in the Energy Transition for the SwRI LCA for Transport Symposium. This presentation is linked below.
November 15, 2023 By Leigh Noda Stillwater has regularly written about California retail gasoline prices compared to the U.S. average. It has been eighteen months since we last posted an article about the cost of California’s climate change programs and excise taxes. With carbon prices and excise tax rates in the Golden State on the...
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November 7, 2023 By Dr. Adam Schubert It is the best of times (for buyers of D4 RINs and sellers of D3 RINs) and the worst of times (for buyers of D3 RINs and sellers of D4 RINs). Several recent news articles have been published concerning the “RIN Cliff” – the rapid fall in D4...
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November 7, 2023 By Allison Bergquist One of Stillwater’s own was recently approached by a land developer to consider turning farmland in Oregon into a solar farm. The lease payment amounts proposed in the out-years would provide approximately four times the income for the land compared to farming the same acres – a significant incentive...
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November 7, 2023 (updated November 15, 2023) By Leigh Noda Tomorrow, Wednesday, November 8th, the Washington Department of Ecology will hold its second Allowance Price Containment Reserve (APCR) auction for the Cap and Invest (C&I) program. This auction was triggered when the settlement price in the August 30, 2023 auction ($63.03 per allowance), exceeded the...
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November 3, 2023 On Tuesday, October 31, CARB posted the second quarter 2023 data for the LCFS program. In today’s flash report, we offer a quick look at the second quarter data. Our comprehensive analysis will be published in Stillwater’s Quarterly LCFS Newsletter which will be available to subscribers on Thursday, November 16th. The second...
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October 17, 2023 Back in May, ahead of the July implementation of the Canadian Clean Fuel Regulations (CFR), several members of Stillwater’s Carbon Crew chatted with Ian Thomson, President of Advanced Biofuels Canada about the state of biofuels production and usage in Canada. Our write-up of that conversation is available here. By way of follow-up,...
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October 16, 2023 By Gary Yowell From the 1990s to the present day, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have maintained that EVs have lower nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) emissions than internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). In fact, California’s State Implementation Plan (SIP) relies heavily...
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October 5, 2023 By Allison M. Bergquist, Ph.D. The advent of fueled flight introduced new emissions into the troposphere. Commercial aviation now accounts for roughly 2% of global CO2 emissions, and unless air travel is completely decarbonized, airplanes will continue to emit carbon dioxide into the air at elevations where emitters historically did not exist....
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On September 28, 2023, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) held a public meeting to hear an update on the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). As a non-voting update to the Board, no Board action was necessary nor was a Rulemaking Package made available. The Board update follows the September 8th release of the Standardized...
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September 20, 2023 By Mark Rigby Investor desire for certainty has been tested in the carbon markets in the last few years, particularly in the critical area of generating revenues to ensure project viability. Will the environment improve as carbon markets mature, or will investors and project developers be confronted with continued revenue uncertainty? While...
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September 12, 2023 By John Wolff In early 2021, winter storm Uri’s cold snap caused blackouts in Texas. The natural gas market and power generation in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)1 region did not play well together at that time, but since then the state is slowly advancing arrangements to add new dispatchable...
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On September 8, 2023, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) released the Standardized Regulatory Impact Assessment (SRIA) for the 2023 Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) Amendments. An SRIA is required when a proposed regulation has an economic impact exceeding $50 million. The SRIA must meet requirements of the Department of Finance and lay out the...
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On August 22, 2023 Stillwater President Megan Boutwell presented about regulatory & refiner perspectives at the Renewable Propane Summit hosted by the Propane Education & Research Council (PERC).
On September 5, Stillwater Chairman Dave Hackett presented the Outlook for the Petroleum Marketing Industry for the Pacific Fuel + Convenience Alliance Summit. Dave’s presentation can be viewed here.
August 29, 2023 By Allison Bergquist Several news outlets published articles in July and August highlighting concerns about recent transit time trends through the Panama Canal. The Stillwater team had an internal conversation via Slack about potential impacts on West Coast fuels, which we thought might be of interest to our readers. We share that...
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On July 31, CARB posted the first quarter 2023 data for the LCFS program. In today’s flash report, we offer a quick look at the first quarter data. Our comprehensive analysis will be published in Stillwater’s Quarterly LCFS Newsletter which will be available to subscribers on Thursday, August 17th. The first quarter data show a net...
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July 26, 2023 By Allison Bergquist, Kendra Seymour, Leigh Noda, and Adam Schubert The Oregon Climate Protection Program (CPP) sets a declining limit, or cap, on greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) from fossil fuels used in the state’s transportation, residential, commercial, and industrial settings. The goal of the program is to reduce emissions in the state...
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On July 18, Stillwater Chairman Dave Hackett presented the Outlook for the Petroleum Marketing Industry for the Chevron Texaco Petroleum Marketers Association. Dave’s presentation can be viewed here.
July 20, 2023 Historically, California has had the highest gas prices in the country, mostly due to its unique gasoline specifications, isolated supply logistics that make it susceptible to unplanned refinery outages, high excise and sales taxes, and two climate change programs – the LCFS and Cap & Trade (C&T). California’s constant lead may be...
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June 21, 2023 Several members of Stillwater’s Carbon Crew recently chatted with John Eichberger, Executive Director of the Transportation Energy Institute (formerly the Fuels Institute). The conversation covered the Institute’s mission and dove into a report they recently commissioned – authored by Stillwater – concerning the decarbonization of internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). We thought...
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June 25, 2023 by Megan Boutwell, Olivier Macé, and Adam Schubert The U.S. and Europe represent two of the largest biofuels markets globally, with policies in both regions driven to varying degrees by environment, energy security, and agricultural interests. The implementation of these policy objectives varies significantly between the regions due to differences in government...
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June 12, 2023 By Jim Mladenik Renewable diesel (RD) is the fastest-growing biofuel in America. It is also the fastest-growing way to reduce carbon emissions from transportation vehicles in California. This article is a basic introduction to RD that explains how it is used, why its use is growing so rapidly, and what to expect...
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June 23, 2023 On June 21, 2023 EPA released the final “Set Rule” covering RFS RVOs for 2023, 2024, and 2025. Per requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act, this final rule considers issues raised by respondents during the public comment period and in the public hearing which EPA held after release of the proposed rule....
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June 14, 2023 Today, CARB staff held a public workshop on potential amendments to the Cap-and-Trade (C&T) regulation. The meeting was cohosted by the Québec Ministry of the Environment. This is the first workshop concerning potential C&T modifications since the adoption of the 2022 Scoping Plan. The C&T regulation needs updates for consistency with the...
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May 24, 2023 Yesterday, CARB hosted a public workshop to present its considerations around a potential auto-acceleration mechanism (AAM) for the LCFS CI-reduction schedule and a potential step change in the CI-reduction benchmark in the near term. Both proposals are being considered as a way to ensure a steady price signal for credits in the...
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May 10, 2023 Ahead of the Canadian Clean Fuel Regulation’s implementation this summer, several members of Stillwater’s Carbon Crew chatted with Ian Thomson, President of Advanced Biofuels Canada about the current state of biofuels production and usage in Canada. We thought our readers might find this conversation enlightening, so we’re publishing it here. (We’ve edited Ian’s answers for...
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April 28, 2023 On Friday, April 28, 2023 CARB posted the fourth quarter 2022 data for the LCFS program. In today’s flash report, we offer a quick look at the fourth quarter data. Our comprehensive analysis will be published in Stillwater’s Quarterly LCFS Newsletter which will be available to subscribers on Tuesday, May 9th. The...
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April 13, 2023 By Megan Boutwell The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) provides for a two-phased approach to incentivize sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production. The first phase, 2023-2024, expands the biomass-based diesel blenders tax credit (BTC) to include a separate per-gallon incentive for SAF. In the second two-year phase, 2025-2027, the tax credit is...
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A little over 20 years ago, Stillwater did a study for the California Energy Commission to examine the feasibility of a California strategic fuel reserve and its possible impact on fuel prices. After the latest round of California gasoline price spikes in 2022, which were caused in part by supply constraints, the idea of a...
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March 20, 2023 By Kendra Seymour The Sierra Nevada has been pummeled by severe winter storms which have delivered feet of snow in recent weeks. In the wake of these storms, Californians are left dealing with giant snowbanks, weighty snow accumulations straining roofs, and even flooding. But that’s not the only storm California is dealing...
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March 6, 2023 By Ryan Biggs Chances are that you have heard about the federal statute officially known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920; most people refer to it as the Jones Act. Below we look at the creation of the Jones Act and the philosophy behind it, discuss its potential penalties and benefits,...
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February 27, 2023 By Dr. Allison Bergquist A quick Google image search of “state LCFS policy maps” results in numerous versions of a U.S. map (and sometimes Europe or Canada) with different states annotated as considering a low carbon fuel standard (LCFS). Note: Program names vary, so LCFS is used throughout this article for simplicity....
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February 23, 2022 Introduction In late January of 2023, Senate Bill 803 was introduced into the Oregon state Senate.(1) If the bill were to pass, it would require all diesel sold in the Portland metropolitan area (Clackamas, Washington, and Multnomah counties) to meet a carbon intensity of 60 gCO2e/MJ after January 1, 2026, and impose...
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February 22, 2023 By Christine Martin Why do California refineries produce gasoline for California specifications and supply, along with gasoline for the Arizona and Nevada markets? To understand how the California/Arizona/Nevada supply chain works, you first must understand the U.S. PADD distribution system. PADD is an acronym for Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts. They are...
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February 7, 2023 By Christine Martin With the implementation of the Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II) and the Advanced Clean Truck regulations, California has mandated that all new sales of light-duty vehicles sold in California be 100% zero emissions vehicles (ZEVs) by 2035 and an increasing percentage of new medium-heavy-duty truck sales be ZEV...
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February 4, 2023 By Allison Bergquist You may have seen a lot of news lately about fuel prices and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Here, we take a look at the origins of the SPR, the purpose of it and some of the potential challenges moving forward. Another 70s Throwback Following the 1973 oil embargo,...
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On February 4th, Stillwater President Megan Boutwell presented at the Columbia-Willamette Clean Cities Coalition Annual Workshop on the low carbon fuel supply in the Pacific Northwest. The presentation discusses incentives and regulations, supply and demand on the west coast, and the value of low carbon fuel.
December 5, 2022 We are excited to announce the inaugural edition of our latest publication: Stillwater’s California Cap and Trade (C&T) Newsletter. Stillwater’s C&T Newsletter will provide subscribers insight into the allowance and offset demand and price trends. We’re kicking off this publication with an abbreviated, complimentary edition of Stillwater’s C&T Quarterly Auction Summary which...
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November 29, 2022 In our article on this topic on September 29th, we briefly discussed the causes behind the rise in retail gasoline prices. Here we take a deeper dive in to what happened to gasoline supply this fall, why costs hit those crazy highs, and the resolution to the problem…this time. You can find...
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On November 29th, Stillwater Chairman Dave Hackett presented at the CEC Hearing on California gas price spikes, refinery operations, and transitioning to a clean transportation future. Dave’s presentation, including notes outlining his commentary for each slide, can be viewed here.
November 28, 2022 by Dave Hackett Gasoline prices soared in California in September until the Governor declared that winter had arrived a month early on Friday afternoon, September 30th. We wrote about the cause of the rise in prices, and have been watching the situation ever since. So, what happened next? First, the California Air...
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November 18, 2022 It seems like renewable diesel (RD) is on the radar of nearly everyone in the transportation industry these days. Typically, RD discussions center on California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) and other LCFS style programs elsewhere which incentivize its use. Flying under the radar, however, is an upcoming regulatory implementation which will...
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November 8, 2022 By Christine Martin In the wake of skyrocketing gasoline prices in California, refinery maintenance has been quite the hot topic. To dive right in, there are 4 types of refinery maintenance as defined by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA): Planned refinery turnarounds – major maintenance or overhaul activities which occur on...
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November 7, 2022 By Adam Schubert Background The recently enacted federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)(1) includes the sunsetting of the Biomass-Based Diesel Blenders Tax Credit (BTC) at the end of 2024 and replaces it with the Section 45Z Clean Fuel Production Tax Credit (CFPC) defined in Section 13704 of the IRA. We have previously described how...
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October 4, 2022 By Kendra Seymour Stillwater’s greatest strength stems from our uniquely qualified team of experts. Call them OGs, The Big Brains, Senior Associates, Gurus; whatever you call them, they leverage decades of experience at major transportation fuel corporations to help clients navigate challenges with the highest level of industry knowledge, market analysis, policy...
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September 7, 2022 by Megan Boutwell Among the many incentives for renewable fuel production in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a new set of tax credits for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The IRA defines a two-phased approach to help meet the Biden administration’s goal of producing 3 billion gallons of SAF in the U.S....
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September 6, 2022 By Gary Yowell Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCV) are zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) which comply with California’s ZEV mandate and internal combustion engine ban. One challenge facing FCVs is the high fuel cost – due to hydrogen’s unique physical properties. High gasoline prices beyond $4.00 per gallon have recently made it into...
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September 5, 2022 by Adam Schubert & Mike Leister On July 1, 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established the final Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) percentage standard requirements for 2020, 2021, and 2022. These percentages – which are displayed in Table 1 below – were calculated using the renewable identification number (RIN) quantities in...
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On August 17, Stillwater President, Megan Boutwell presented at the Green Transportation Summit and Expo 2022. Megan’s presentation, Renewable Diesel: Demand, Supply and What Happens Next, can be viewed here.
by David Hackett California has big plans to reduce the use of petroleum and replace that energy with electricity. The first goal is to achieve 60% renewable energy by 2030. The next goal is to achieve 100% renewable and zero-carbon electricity while gaining carbon neutrality by 2045. In between, in 2035 the state intends to...
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By Adam Schubert CARB has been indicating for some time that the next round of revisions to the LCFS would come after the AB32 Scoping Plan was completed. With that in mind, CARB surprised many observers by holding an “informal workshop” on potential changes to the LCFS on July 7th. This session had about 700...
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The Portland City Council voted to adopt Fossil Fuel Terminal Zoning Amendments on December 18, 2019. These Amendments prohibit the development of new fossil fuel storage tanks citywide and prohibit the expansion of tank capacity at existing bulk fossil fuel terminals. Under the zoning amendments, although the existing bulk fossil fuel terminals in Portland are “limited uses”...
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June 10, 2021 by Mike Newman, Director of Parhelion Underwriting The effects of climate change are unpredictable, leaving businesses to scramble to adapt to new risks in a shifting new normal. How should companies think about climate change? The key characteristic of Climate Change is its unpredictability and the feeling that the natural rhythm of...
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May 31, 2022 In accordance with California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Zero-Emission By 2035 Executive Order, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is developing a ban on the sale of new internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles by 2035. The goals of this ban are to promote clean air in the state and to mitigate climate change....
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May 25, 2022 By Leigh Noda *updated June 16, 2022 with current pricing data. Stillwater Associates has been queried why the retail price of diesel fuel is higher than gasoline—even higher than the retail price of premium gasoline. “According to AAA, as of June 16, 2022 California average diesel price breached $7 per gallon at $7.002 per gallon while...
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May 11, 2022 By Gary Yowell The Biden Administration[1] has been promoting EVs as a key federal strategy to address the current petroleum dilemma brought about by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Using California, the most proactive EV state in the country as a guide, we can examine the effectiveness of EVs in reducing petroleum use....
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May 10, 2022 By Adam Schubert Background On April 12th, President Biden announced that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would issue an emergency waiver of federal gasoline Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) regulations this summer for E15—a 15% blend of ethanol with gasoline. This action was finalized on April 29th. As ethanol is typically less...
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April 29, 2021 On Friday, April 29th, CARB posted the fourth quarter 2021 data for the LCFS program. In today’s flash report, we offer a quick look at the fourth quarter data. Our comprehensive analysis will be published in Stillwater’s Quarterly LCFS Newsletter which will be available to subscribers on Thursday, May 12th. The fourth...
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April 5, 2022 By Jim Mladenik Three major issues have dominated media coverage lately associated with an “existential threat” to humanity: the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, and the war in Ukraine. Medical science seems to have kept up with the rapidly evolving Covid virus and offers visible hopes for defeating or at least containing it....
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March 19, 2022 By Barry Schaps Recently, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) announced its decision to phase out the current fleet of 30-year-old Grumman postal trucks, replacing as many as 165,000 vehicles with Oshkosh Defense trucks – a contract valued at $11.3 billion over 10 years. While no one would argue the current fleet of...
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March 11, 2022 by Charles Daly, Channoil Energy History of the Soviet Pipelines To understand the energy dynamics of today’s war in Ukraine, it is necessary to visit the history of the pipeline systems that were built during the Soviet period and within the Warsaw Pact countries. Firstly, most of the production of oil...
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March 9, 2022 By Leigh Noda While the national average for regular gasoline today, March 9th, is $4.25 per gallon, California’s average price is much higher at $5.57 per gallon according to AAA. Just last week, California’s average unleaded regular gasoline price exceed $5 per gallon for the first time ever. While a good portion...
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March 8, 2022 By Dave Hackett Oil is in the news in a big way with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Until this week, most people didn’t know that the U.S. is an importer of Russian oil. This article will look at U.S. imports in 2021 and put the volumes into context relative to the...
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March 2, 2022 By Adam Schubert California LCFS credit prices have been on a downtrend since 2020 with the return of quarterly credit surpluses driven by increasing volumes of renewable diesel (RD), growth in the electric vehicle (EV) fleet, and dramatic reductions in the carbon intensity (CI) of renewable natural gas (RNG). Many see this...
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On February 28, Stillwater Senior Analyst, Jim Mladenik presented at the Bioeconomy Hawaii Forum 2022. Jim’s presentation, Options for Reducing Transport Fuel Carbon Intensity, illustrates the fuel greenhouse gas lifecycle versus that of tailpipe emissions. View a PDF version of this presentation here.
February 1, 2022 Volatility in the LCFS credit market and recently released 3Q2021 data showing nearly 433,000 metric tons in net credits for the quarter have left many investors scratching their heads. What does this mean for the trajectory of the program? How should we think about credit prices going forward? Stillwater Associates’ LCFS Team...
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January 20, 2022 By Kendra Seymour It’s been nearly three years since we published an updated 101-level overview of the LCFS. It’s past time. Today, we’re delivering a refresher on the current rules and the latest status of the credit market. Let’s dive in! What is the LCFS? California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard is one...
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January 31, 2021 On Monday, January 31st, CARB posted the third quarter 2021 data for the LCFS program. The 3Q2021 report gives us insight into the credit bank situation more than a year after COVID-19 stay-at-home orders were put into place in California. In today’s flash report, we offer a quick look at the third...
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January 12, 2022 By Megan Boutwell Stillwater’s focus for 2022 is the transportation energy transition. Regulations in the U.S., Canada, and the European Union (EU) along with corporate commitments to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are driving investments in low-carbon alternatives to petroleum fuels. Here are some of the transportation energy transition hot topics we’ll...
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January 8, 2022 By Jim Mladenik Stillwater’s first article on the social cost of carbon (SCC) defined the term and covered how the U.S. estimates the cost of climate change. The U.S. federal government has used numbers varying from $41 per metric ton (MT) under the Obama administration to near $1 per MT under President...
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January 6, 2022 By Leigh Noda On December 7th, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) held their second workshop for the current round of potential regulatory amendments to the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). The first workshop, Chapter 1, was held more than a year earlier over two days – October 14-15, 2020. CARB staff...
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January 5, 2022 By Gary Yowell The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), California Air Resources Board (CARB), and EV promoters often claim EVs have three times higher fuel economy than their gasoline counterparts. This is like saying eggs come from grocery stores, which is true, but ignores the fact that eggs originate from laying hens before...
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November 3, 2021 By Adam Schubert Recent months have seen several announcements of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects in various stages of development. While commercial CCS operations have limited history, deployment of this technology is seen as a feasible way to eliminate significant volumes of CO2 emissions. In this article, we will take a brief look at existing U.S. incentives for CCS applications in...
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October 20, 2021 By Nick Griffith We here in Southern California are experiencing our first significant offshore oil spill in some time. It now appears that crude oil, estimated to be about 600 barrels (or about 25,000 gallons), escaped from a fracture in the San Pedro Bay Pipeline which connects Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Platform Elly to Long Beach. Investigations and surveys continue during the cleanup efforts, after which we should know the range of...
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October 19, 2021 By Jim Mladenik Stillwater’s first article on the social cost of carbon (SCC) defined the term and covered how the U.S. estimates the cost of climate change. In that article we also pointed out the fact that the U.S. federal government has used numbers varying from $41 per metric ton (MT) under the...
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September 30, 2021 By Leigh Noda What is RVO and how is it applied? The Renewable Volume Obligation (RVO) on suppliers (refiners and importers) is the U.S. federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) mechanism that creates the obligation to acquire and retire renewable identification numbers (RINs). For each calendar year, an RVO percentage (RVO%) is developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through a rulemaking process. The RVO% is...
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August 1, 2021 By Jim Mladenik, Olivier Macé, and Kendra Seymour The many announcements in the past months of projects to modify refinery and existing facilities to produce renewable diesel (RD) has caused many observers to ask two questions: Where will all the feedstocks come from? Where will all the RD go? The first of these questions is addressed in a series of monthly highlights in...
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August 2, 2021 On Friday afternoon, July 30th, CARB posted the first quarter 2021 data for the LCFS program. The 1Q2021 report gives us insight into the credit bank situation for a full year following COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. In today’s flash report, we offer a quick look at the first quarter data. Our comprehensive analysis...
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