Tag Archive: RFS

FLASH REPORT: EPA Issues Proposed RFS Standards for 2023-2025 plus Requirements for eRINs

December 1, 2022 , ,

December 1, 2022 by Adam Schubert EPA today announced their proposed RFS standards (“Set Rule”) for 2023, 2024, and 2025. This proposed rule also contains substantial new provisions enabling the generation of eRINs. This proposal is the first rule concerning RFS years past 2022, the last year for which the statute contained specific annual volume requirements. As a result, EPA...
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A Glimpse of the Near Future: Petroleum Product Landscape (2021-2023)

August 11, 2021 , , ,

On August 10th, Stillwater Vice President of Operations, Megan Boutwell, presented at the CTPMA 2021 Business Forum at the Broadmoor in Colorado. Megan’s presentation touches on the outlook for petroleum product demand, how the federal renewable fuel standard will continue to impact the transport fuels market, and what’s coming with state-level low carbon fuel standard programs. View a PDF version...
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As the RINs Spin

March 2, 2021 , ,

March 1, 2021 By Adam Schubert With the completion of the current season of refiner quarterly earnings reports, federal Renewable Fuel Standard credits – known as renewable identification numbers, or RINs – prices are once more in the headlines. As RIN prices have increased since the beginning of 2020, it is worth taking another look at this key element of...
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Post-Coronavirus: What’s Next in the Environmental Commodities Markets

April 30, 2020 , ,

On April 30th, 2020, Stillwater President Dave Hackett participated in a webinar hosted by Parhelion Underwriting on the topic of how the fallout from COVID-19 will affect environmental commodities. Dave spoke about the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) credit markets. To view a PDF version of Dave’s slide deck, click here.

The Problem of Invalidated RINs in the Renewable Fuel Standard

November 14, 2018 ,

November 14, 2018 by Mike Newman of Parhelion Underwriting Under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) imposed a “buyer beware” approach to the purchase and sale of Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs). This creates a liability for any buyer of RINs, making them responsible for purchases of invalid RINS, even if done inadvertently.[1] The liability includes the...
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The Renewable Fuel Standard – Part 3: Where to from here? 

September 1, 2018 , ,

September 1, 2018 by Brian Conroy  This is the third and final segment in a series of articles on the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). In part one, we discussed the context around the passage of RFS. Part two covered the program’s primary goals and the progress to-date toward each goal. Today we conclude our series by looking down the road to discuss a new way to think about...
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The Renewable Fuel Standard – Part 2: Performance Over Time

August 7, 2018 ,

August 1, 2018 by Brian Conroy In Part 1 of this series, we discussed the background and drivers for the implementation of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). In Part 2, we will look at how RFS has performed against each of its three primary goals: Increase energy security Provide a mechanism for higher demand for U.S. agriculture Reduce greenhouse...
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Bio-Isobutanol – Overview and Challenges 

July 8, 2018 , ,

July 8, 2018 by Adam Schubert  On June 12th, 2018 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it had granted to Butamax Advanced Biofuels, LLC (Butamax) registration of blends of up to 16 volume percent (vol%) isobutanol in gasoline. Prior to granting this registration, EPA took the unusual step of seeking public comment due to, as EPA put it, the significant possibility that such isobutanol-gasoline blends had the potential for widespread use.   Overview  Butamax and its competitor, Gevo, have...
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Policy trends we’ll be watching in 2018

January 17, 2018

January 15, 2018 By Megan Boutwell Stillwater’s transportation energy policy experts closely follow federal, state, and international policy developments and their impacts on industry and consumers. As 2018 begins, there are a number of policy trends that we will be following and for which we’ll provide expertise to clients. The following are of some of the biggest policy trends we...
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Update: How much “Ethanol-Free” gasoline is out there?

November 13, 2017

November 11, 2017 By David Hackett, President Last year, we at Stillwater offered a review of the state of ethanol-free (or E0) gasoline in the U.S. Since then, we’ve learned a great deal about the market which we will share in this updated article. We start with some background: The Federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) requires increasing levels of renewable...
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The RFS Point of Obligation Part 3: Will moving the point of obligation significantly increase the use of renewable fuels?

July 12, 2017 ,

July 12, 2017 by Michael Leister As we continue our RFS Point of Obligation series, we look at the RIN obligations calculated in the simple example last month using 100,000 gallons of gasoline and 50,000 gallons of diesel, we need to remember typical refineries produce much larger volumes of these products.  A typical refinery processes around 150,000 barrels per day...
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The RFS Point of Obligation Part 2: How are RINs generated and RFS compliance achieved?

June 6, 2017 , ,

June 6, 2017 by Michael Leister Last month in the first edition in our RFS Point of Obligation series, we discussed the general RFS rules, this month we get more specific about RIN generation and RFS Compliance.  When a renewable fuel producer like an ethanol production facility or biomass-based diesel manufacturing plant produces a compliant renewable fuel, the renewable fuel...
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RFS Point of Obligation Part 1: How Does the RFS Work?

May 16, 2017 , ,

May 1, 2017 by Michael Leister For the past year or more, there has been a lot of discussion in the transportation fuels industry on moving the current Renewable Fuels Standard 2 (RFS2) point of obligation to the point where rack blending occurs. Currently the point of obligation is with refiners and importers, however the RINs for RFS compliance are...
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How much “Ethanol Free” gasoline is out there?

November 16, 2016

November 15, 2016 By David Hackett The Federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) requires increasingly high levels of renewable fuels to be blended into transportation fuel. Ethanol provides the largest share of the renewable fuel pool so that nearly all of the gasoline sold in the U.S. is 10% ethanol. With this volume it would be easy to assume that there...
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How RFS Changes Impact Program Participants

March 15, 2016

Michael Leister’s presentation at the 2016 AFPM Annual Meeting on March 15, 2016. This presentation discusses EPA’s changes to the RFS  which are meant to encourage the growth of production and use of biofuels and as an initial step to drive greater E85 and perhaps E15 sales. The presentation provides an analysis of the changes to the standards and how they will...
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The U.S. Side of the U.S.-China GHG Agreement: The Impossible Dream

February 25, 2015 ,

February 23, 2015 by Dave Hirshfeld, MathPro Inc. In November 2014, the Presidents of the U.S. and China agreed to new curbs on the two countries’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, stating that: “The U.S. intends to reduce its emissions by 26%-28% below its 2005 level by 2025 and to make its best efforts to reduce its emissions by 28%.” “China...
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The CBO Finds Future RFS Volume Mandates Pose “Significant Challenges”

December 10, 2014

December 5, 2014   by Dave Hirshfeld, MathPro Inc. In June 2014, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published an analysis of the feasibility and economic implications of achieving future annual renewable fuel mandate volumes1 for the federal Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS). Here in Regulation City, refining industry advocates praised the CBO analysis; ethanol industry advocates trashed it. Elsewhere, the report...
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