Posts by Hoekstra Trading LLC
Top Four Takeaways from EPA’s public hearing on the 2026-2027 RFS Standards Proposed Rule
On July 8, 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held a public hearing on the 2026-2027 proposed Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) renewable fuel volume obligations and the partial waiver of the 2025 cellulosic renewable fuel volume obligation. The comment period for this EPA proposal closes August 8, 2025. Below are my top 4 takeaways…
Read MoreThe Octane Value of Ethanol Part 1- Measuring Octane Quantity With The Octane-gallon
Refiners and other gasoline enthusiasts are familiar with the concept of the octane-gallon. One octane-gallon is the quantity of octane that will raise the octane of one gallon of gasoline by one octane number. See other blogs in this series: The Octane Value of Ethanol – This week, I saw 93 octane premium gasoline priced at…
Read MoreWhat was “RINsanity”? Read This Classic 2013 Article On The Big Bang of Renewable Identification Number (RIN)s
This New York Times article described the frenzy set off by the 100-FOLD increase in the D6 RIN in 2013. Now, 12 years later, most RIN participants know what really caused that price explosion. But the market remains confused and is still often blindsided by unexpected price behaviors caused by nuances of the RIN system…
Read MoreComparing Theoretical and Market Renewable Identification Number Prices Part 5 – RIN Price Forecasting
ATTRACTOR is a spreadsheet application of the RIN price equation defined in this publication by Scott H Irwin, Kristen McCormack and James H Stock. Since its Release in October, 2020, ATTRACTOR has been used by Hoekstra Trading clients to calculate theoretical Renewable Identification Number (RIN) prices based on economic fundamentals and compare them to market…
Read MoreComparing Theoretical and Market Renewable Identification Number (RIN) Prices Part 4 – Over-Reaction to Regulatory Policy Changes
A May 15, 2025 rumor said the Renewable Volume Obligation (RVO) levels for biobased diesel for years 2026 and following would be set at less than 5 billion gal/y, at a time when the market was expecting it will be a higher number. Read other blogs in this series – Comparing Theoretical and Market RIN…
Read MoreTop 3 Takeaways From Fastmarkets Biofuels and Feedstocks Americas 2025 Conference
Number 3: What is the status of U.S. biodiesel production? U.S. biodiesel production (not including plants that use hydroprocessing technology, which are commonly known as renewable diesel plants) is running at half capacity. Some biodiesel plants are not producing at all now, but are keeping a full staff who are doing other work like maintenance…
Read MoreComparing Theoretical and Market Renewable Identification Number (RIN) Prices Part 3 – Anticipating Changes in Tax Subsidies
Read other blogs in this series – Comparing Theoretical and Market RIN Prices: Figure 1 (whose title says Fig. 2) shows a copy of Figure 2 extracted from the published Irwin-McCormack-Stock (IMS) article that defines D4T and the ATTRACTOR model. In Part 2 of this series, I said this chart: Shows that the D4 RIN…
Read MoreMidwest States Pose New Challenges for Gasoline Supply
With summer gasoline season upon us, refiners and gasoline distributors are now supplying the more expensive, low volatility summer gasoline grades that cause pump prices to increase in summer. This year, they include a new low volatility grade that is being supplied for the first time to motorists in several Midwest states. This is the…
Read MoreMy Top Three Takeaways From the Bloomberg Farm, Food, and Fuel Summit 2025
Number 3 — Confusion reigns At a conference in September, 2024, a panelist said, “Biofuels is a difficult place to work” At the time, that struck me as a concise understatement about the biofuels business environment. The same feeling was in the air at two other conferences in January covering California’s biofuels regulations, and again…
Read MoreComparing Theoretical and Market Renewable Identification Number (RIN) Prices Part 2 – How Well Do RIN Market Prices Track With Economic Theory?
How well do RIN Market Prices Track With Economic Theory? Read other blogs in this series – Comparing Theoretical and Market RIN Prices: This question is best answered by the 2 charts below. Figure 1 (whose title says Fig. 2) shows a copy of Figure 2 extracted from the published Irwin-McCormack-Stock (IMS) article that defines…
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