Marathon and Neste push renewable diesel to US fleets; India's E20 blend draws driver protests

California and federal credits still pay US fleets to run renewable diesel, so that's where the money in this sector sits today. The foreign items in the wire are mostly domestic mandates that don't touch a US rack.

Renewable diesel

Renewable diesel is still the part of this business that matters to a US hauler, and two of the biggest suppliers spent the day selling it. Marathon is positioning its renewable diesel as a workhorse for cleaner trucking, and Neste is pitching MY Renewable Diesel as a B2B fuel to move fleets toward lower emissions. Both are drop-in product. It runs in existing diesel engines with no new hardware, which is the whole reason fleets take it.

The economics haven't changed. Renewable diesel earns under California's LCFS and generates RINs under the federal RFS, and a gallon can collect from both programs at once. The two credits together are what make the switch pay for a fleet, more than the pump price does. For a jobber, the question is supply and how those credit values hold up, because that sets whether the delivered cost pencils out against regular ULSD.

India's E20 fight

Modi's biofuel push is under pressure. Motorists across India are protesting the move to E20, gasoline blended with 20 percent ethanol, over complaints about mileage and older engines not handling the higher blend. Bloomberg reported the backlash. One buyer wrote up gathering the courage to buy a new car in the middle of the ethanol mess.

It's a foreign mandate, so it doesn't move a US rack. It's worth a glance anyway, because the US has its own unsettled fight over year-round E15 and consumer trust in higher ethanol blends, and India is running the live experiment on what drivers do when you push the percentage up.

Asia's supply bet

Asia is leaning on biofuels to cushion against Middle East oil shortages, per OilPrice. The same piece notes interest in biofuels grew through 2024 on the green-transition push, then cooled in 2025 as several companies pulled back. That cooling is the signal for US producers watching export demand for feedstock and finished product.

Smaller items: the Philippines is being pressed to act on a 5 percent coconut biodiesel blend, and Kenyan police seized 123 drums of suspected illicit ethanol near Namanga. Neither reaches this market.

What to watch

LCFS credit prices and RIN values, because those set renewable diesel's delivered economics for US fleets. Watch whether India's E20 protests force any rollback, since that's the closest real-world read on blend-wall resistance that the US ethanol debate keeps circling.