 |
Louisiana Light • 5 days | 89.16 | +0.62 | +0.70% | ||
|
Bonny Light • 19 hours | 91.93 | +0.64 | +0.70% | ||
|
Opec Basket • 2 days | 89.57 | -1.20 | -1.32% | ||
|
Mars US • 165 days | 77.67 | -1.57 | -1.98% | ||
|
Gasoline • 11 mins | 2.819 | -0.003 | -0.12% |
|
Bonny Light • 19 hours | 91.93 | +0.64 | +0.70% | ||
|
Girassol • 19 hours | 92.31 | +0.50 | +0.54% | ||
|
Opec Basket • 2 days | 89.57 | -1.20 | -1.32% |
|
Peace Sour • 14 hours | 78.61 | -0.25 | -0.32% | ||
|
Light Sour Blend • 14 hours | 81.66 | -0.25 | -0.31% | ||
|
Syncrude Sweet Premium • 14 hours | 88.61 | -0.25 | -0.28% | ||
|
Central Alberta • 14 hours | 79.01 | -0.25 | -0.32% |
|
Eagle Ford • 2 days | 81.89 | -0.25 | -0.30% | ||
|
Oklahoma Sweet • 2 days | 81.75 | -0.25 | -0.30% | ||
|
Kansas Common • 19 hours | 75.50 | -0.25 | -0.33% | ||
|
Buena Vista • 5 days | 89.36 | +0.64 | +0.72% |
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U.S. Increases Biofuel Blending Requirements
The EPA finalized U.S. biofuel blending requirements for 2020, 2021, and 2022, according to Bloomberg sources familiar with the plan.
Laying out what is known as the Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS, the EPA will require refiners and importers to mix in 20.63 billion gallons of renewable fuel into gasoline and diesel in 2022—15 billion gallons can be filled with ethanol, but 5.63 billion gallons of the standard must come from advanced biofuels.
For 2021, the standards will match actual consumption, while the retroactive standards for 2020 were lowered.
The EPA also rejected tens of small refinery requests for exemption from previous year quotas.
The EPA proposed at the end of 2021 a reduction in the amount of biofuels that refiners were required to add to gasoline and diesel, in order to cut the refining industry a break after a couple of years of serious demand destruction during the pandemic. As is often the case, both the corn lobby and the oil industry lobby were disgruntled with the proposal—the corn lobby for not sticking to campaign promises with regards to renewable fuels, and the oil lobby for not cutting the RFS enough.
At the time, the EPA had proposed a reduction to 17.13 billion gallons for 2020, from 20.09 gallons set in 2019. For 2021, the EPA had proposed 18.52 billion gallons, and for 2022, the EPA proposed an increase, to 20.77 billion gallons.
But as of January, President Biden was considering a cut to the 2022 mandate. Meanwhile, the oil lobby continued to argue that there simply wasn’t enough ethanol to meet the suggested requirement.
Typically, the RFS isn’t set after the fact. But first, the pandemic, and now high crude oil and gasoline prices and the tight market for commodities such as corn and soybeans, have muddied the waters, delaying the decision.
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By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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Julianne Geiger
Julianne Geiger is a veteran editor, writer and researcher for Oilprice.com, and a member of the Creative Professionals Networking Group.
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Both the United States and Brazil the world’s two largest producers of ethanol use millions of hectares in the plains of the US State of Iowa to grow corn to produce ethanol whilst Brazil destroys 78 million acres annually of the Amazon rainforest to grow sugar cane to produce ethanol to blend with gasoline with negligible if not questionable impact on the environment.
At a time the world is heading slowly but surely towards a global food crisis the United States should stop the production of ethanol and use the millions of tons of corn to bolster the food stocks of the world instead.
As for Brazil, stopping the destruction of huge areas of the rainforests has far bigger and meaningful benefits for the environment than ethanol production.
Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Visiting Professor of Energy Economics at ESCP Europe Business School, London