FEATURED ARTICLES
News
Stop Waiting for Normal: Fuel Market Decisions in the New Equilibrium
May 26, 2026
When clients ask us about the Iran war, the question that comes up most often is some version of when, and how, things get back to normal. Our view today is that a return to pre-war conditions is not the right framing for what comes next. The crude market will normalize faster than products, the...
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Policy
Stranded: West Coast Fuel Supply & Strategic Vulnerability
February 12, 2026
West Coast fuel supply is becoming more fragile just as Indo-Pacific geopolitical risks are rising, turning what might look like a regional market issue into a strategic vulnerability for commercial, governmental, and military fuel users alike. Stillwater Associates was recently asked to brief the Navy’s Energy Forum about this structural fragility and why sophisticated planning...
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Policy
California’s ZEV Stall: Sales Peak, Federal Credit Expires, and State Scoping Plan Slips Out of Reach
May 12, 2026
This is the fourth in a series of articles examining California’s transportation fuels progress toward the greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets set by the 2022 Scoping Plan. The first article – Mind the Gap: Transportation Emissions vs. California’s 2022 Scoping Plan Pathway – provided background and an overview of how the transportation sector has performed...
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ADDITIONAL INSIGHT
Economics
U.S. West Coast HEFA Margins – The FOG clears
August 6, 2026
The rapid expansion of renewable diesel (RD) and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production in North America has transformed the economics of biofuels, with California becoming the single largest RD market globally in a short period of time. Looking at the market from the perspective of pricing and value stacks, biofuel margins provide visibility into the...
Policy
Portland’s 20% Storage Drawdown: A Question of Demand and Flexibility
July 14, 2026
As Oregon’s carbon-reduction goals for the transport sector become more stringent, reliable storage and delivery of low-carbon fuels is essential to achieving the State’s ambitions. Oregon’s Clean Fuel Program (CFP), Climate Protection Program (CPP), and Portland’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) are driving volumes of low-carbon liquid fuels which can be used in the current fleet...
Economics
RINsanity Returns!
July 13, 2026
The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) created four nested categories renewable fuel demand, each with its own D-Code – D6 for total renewable fuels, D5 for advanced biofuels, D4 for biomass-based diesel (BBD), and D3/D7 for cellulosic biofuels. Each of these categories has a greenhouse gas threshold (see more at our RFS 101 primer). The D4...
Economics
The BC credit value stack: how CFR price discovery is reshaping BC-LCFS credit prices
July 10, 2026
This article concludes a three-part series. The first article introduced the four archetypes of market participants found in every low-carbon fuel credit market; the second explained why the British Columbia (BC) and Canadian credit markets behave differently from California’s. In this article we ask a question those differences make pressing: with Canada’s Clean Fuel Regulations...
Economics
Building Blocks: How Large Trades Are Transforming the LCFS Market
July 7, 2026
For the first decade (2012-2021) of the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), only one transaction breached the 100,000-metric-ton (MT) mark. From 2022 through the first six months of 2026, however, 153 transactions have exceeded it (see Figure 1). Large-volume credit transfers – those greater than 100,000 MT – have become a regular feature of...
Policy
The Mechanics of Canada’s Gaseous CFR Credit Market
June 18, 2026
Canada’s Clean Fuel Regulations (CFR, SOR/2022-140) create a single compliance credit market, but not all credits in that market are equal. The CFR distinguishes between liquid class and gaseous class compliance credits and limits how much a primary supplier (a producer or importer of fossil-based gasoline and diesel) can use gaseous credits toward its compliance...
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