Trump weighs new small refinery waivers under the Renewable Fuel Standard

Refinery waivers

Trump is weighing refinery exemptions from RFS blending obligations, and farm groups are warning the move could cut biofuel demand. For anyone moving ethanol or holding RINs, that is the story to track. Small refinery exemptions pull gallons of required blending out of the system. Fewer obligated gallons means softer RIN values, and softer RINs ripple straight back to ethanol plant margins and the price a blender will pay. The farm lobby is pushing back hard because corn demand rides on the mandate holding. No decision has been announced yet, so the size and number of any waivers is the number that matters.

Export demand

USDA is forecasting continued growth in the value of US ethanol exports, and the near-term pull is coming from new blending programs abroad. Guatemala is launching an E10 program and already bought more than 13 million gallons from the US ahead of the official start, according to US Grains and Bioproducts Council past chair Mark Wilson. Wilson points to bigger prizes behind it. Japan is moving from ETBE toward E10 by 2030, which he pegs at a 1.4 billion gallon market. Mexico could add another 1.6 billion gallons if its program gets going.

Those are foreign mandates, but the barrels come from US corn country, and export demand is one of the few levers that could offset any waiver hit at home. If Washington trims domestic blending and export orders keep climbing, plants have somewhere to send the gallons. That balance is worth watching.

India is running its own ethanol-blended petrol fight, with officials arguing the program has not driven up sugar prices. It does not move US pricing and is not a US operator's concern beyond confirming that global ethanol demand keeps expanding.

Renewable diesel

XCF Global's New Rise Renewables Reno plant runs domestic feedstocks like distillers corn oil into drop-in renewable diesel and SAF, which sidesteps crude price swings and pipeline snags. Canadian oil sands production is down on maintenance and operational pullbacks, which is squeezing conventional refiner diesel margins and distillate availability. For a hauler watching diesel supply, more domestic renewable diesel is a small cushion against the Canadian pullback.

What to watch

The waiver decision is the one to watch, both whether Trump grants exemptions and how many gallons they cover, because that sets RIN values and plant margins into the fall. Watch Guatemala's E10 launch volumes for a read on how fast the export orders actually land. And watch Canadian oil sands output coming back from maintenance, which could ease the distillate tightness that renewable diesel is filling now.