Chevron idles biodiesel facilities as prices fall - Biofuels International Magazine
Chevron idles biodiesel facilities as prices fall | Biofuels International Magazine
Chevron idles biodiesel facilities as prices fall
The oil producer bought biodiesel maker Renewable Energy Group in 2022 to expand its renewable fuels production to 100,000 barrels per day by 2030.
The deal brought it 10 biodiesel plants and one renewable diesel facility, Reuters reported.
Chevron idled plants in Ralston, Iowa, and Madison, Wisconsin, that combined can process 50 million gallon per year of biodiesel.
Prices have slumped in recently months as supplies have grown and the value of renewable credits recently fell to a three-year low.
The price of a blend of 20% biodiesel fell last month to $3.45 (€3.20) per gallon of gasoline equivalent, from the peak of $4.80 (€4.40) per gallon in October 2022.
President Joe Biden's administration last year increased the amount of biofuels that oil refiners must blend into the nation's fuel mix over the next three years, but the plan includes lower mandates for corn-based ethanol than it had initially proposed and sent credit prices lower.
Producers of renewable diesel generate more renewable credits due to their lower carbon intensity score than biodiesel.
Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: renewables
Renewable energy sources — once the fuel of the future, then practical in specific, narrow applications — are increasingly economic mainstream sources of power generation. Hydropower was long the mainstay of U.S. renewable electricity generation, although wind power surpassed hydro for the first time in 2019, and solar continues its rapid growth. The continued growth of wind and solar, with their fluctuations, is tied in part to improvements in storage technology: batteries.