President Donald Trump's administration today granted small refiners even more exemptions from federal biofuel blend mandates, raising the stakes of a debate about whether larger oil companies should shoulder more of the burden.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted two full exemptions from the program's annual blend requirements, halved obligations in response to 12 petitions, and denied two others. The agency requires oil refiners and importers to annually blend biofuels or buy credits from those who do, though small facilities that process 75,000 b/d or less can request program waivers that can save them tens of millions of dollars.
The agency used the same methodology as its sweeping August decision, which responded to a historic backlog of petitions and granted most refiners some relief from years of mandates. New petitions poured in afterwards, including from refiners that had not requested waivers in years. And more decisions could come soon, with EPA committing Friday to "address new petitions as quickly as possible" and to try to meet a legal requirement to decide requests within 90 days.
Farm and biofuel groups fear that widespread waivers curb demand for their products and have lobbied the Trump administration to follow through on a plan to make oil companies without exemptions blend more biofuels in future years to offset past exemptions for their smaller rivals. Particularly for higher-cost products like renewable diesel and biogas, any dip in demand can prompt biorefineries to slash output.
The debate has intensified in recent weeks after a refiner granted generous exemptions in August announced plans to convert a renewable diesel unit back to crude.
"The impact on biofuel and agriculture markets will be devastating" without compensating for these exemptions in future biofuel quotas, said Geoff Cooper, president of the ethanol lobby Renewable Fuels Association.
EPA already planned on estimating future exemptions from 2026-2027 requirements when finalizing biofuel mandates those years. But the agency has added more work to its plate with a subsequent plan to force large oil refiners to compensate for either all or half of the biofuel volumes lost to actual and expected exemptions from 2023-2025 requirements. The impact of older exemptions is less significant since the credits are expired.
The challenge for EPA is that small refiners can submit new or revised petitions at any time, including for years-old mandates. That makes it hard for EPA to accurately forecast future exemptions, and biofuel groups have feared that the agency could muddle the effects of its "reallocation" plan by underestimating volumes ultimately lost to program waivers.
Indeed, EPA with its Friday decisions has already waived more requirements than it predicted earlier this year. The agency last forecast that exemptions from 2023 and 2024 mandates would amount to around 1.4bn Renewable Identification Number credits (RINs) of lost demand — but now, the waivers have already reduced obligations those years by 1.92bn RINs, according to program data. If EPA sticks to its plans, that means large refiners will have to blend an even greater share in future years than expected. But if the Trump administration waters down its reallocation idea, biofuel demand could sink more than previously forecast too.
There is also the risk that EPA underestimates exemptions for the 2025 compliance year. EPA last forecast that exemptions from those requirements will amount to 780mn RINs of lost demand but has not yet decided any of the 12 pending petitions for that year. Many more requests are likely.
Small refiners add to their winnings
The August exemptions were a windfall for some oil companies. HF Sinclair, which owns multiple small refineries, last week reported $115mn from lower compliance costs as well as a $56mn indirect benefit from "commercial optimization" of its RIN credit position.
And HF Sinclair won more Friday, winning full waivers from 2023 and 2024 biofuel mandates for the "east" section of a larger 125,000 b/d complex in Tulsa, Oklahoma that before September had not previously requested relief in at least three years. The company also won partial relief for two other units from 2021 mandates.
Phillips 66 won four years of partial relief for its 66,000 b/d Montana facility, as did Big West Oil for its 35,000 b/d Utah plant. Silver Eagle won exemptions from 2023 blend mandates for two smaller units it owns in Wyoming and Utah. The only Friday denials were for Chevron's 45,000 b/d Utah refinery, which applied for the first time in years just last month.
But the increasingly generous relief for small refiners is likely to provoke further backlash from larger oil companies, which argue that making them blend more biofuels is anticompetitive and illegal.
EPA is months behind schedule on setting biofuel mandates for 2026 and 2027 and has a deadline Friday to tell a court more about how its reallocation plan affects its timeline. Biofuel groups have asked the court to force the agency to finalize program updates by year-end.
