Rising renewable diesel (RD) capacity has been actively supporting crush margins and soybean oil futures over the past couple of years. RD capacity has grown 263 percent since January 2022. Some of the growth has come at the expense of biodiesel capacity, which is down eight percent during the same period.

This rapid growth has been having an impact on the agricultural market. The crushing of soybeans has historically been performed to create soybean meal for the animal feed industry. Soybean oil is a co-product of the crush, often considered a lesser valued component than meal, and has been typically processed into soybean oil for the food market.

The advent of the biofuel fuel industry has seen a larger segment of domestic soybean oil going to the biofuel industry as feedstock to create fuel. Soybean oil has been the largest feedstock used to create biomass-based diesel.

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