Renewable Volume Obligations Next Hurdle for RINs

After digesting the Supreme Court ruling, the RIN market brushed off the news, turning its attention to renewable volume obligations (RVO).  If the EPA holds the 2021 mandate near the 2020 mandate, there remains concern about ethanol and the 10 percent blend wall.

In the Energy Information Administration (EIA) Short-Term Energy Outlook.  The forecast for gasoline consumption is currently 133.98 billion gallons, while the outlook for ethanol consumption is only 13.76 billion gallons.  Not quite the 10 percent the market is looking for.  Adding to the ethanol stress is whether or not the EPA is going to roll in the three-year average of SRE gallons that were previously granted and are supposed to be rolled back in and accounted for.

If there is an ethanol related gap within the upcoming RVO, biomass-based diesel will become the marginal…