EIA: Biodiesel production at 1.817 billion gallons in 2020

U.S. biodiesel production reached 159 million gallons in December 2020, up from 151 million gallons the previous month and up from 133 million gallons in December 2019, according to data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Feb. 26. Production came from 85 biodiesel plants with a combined capacity of 2.5 billion gallons per year.

Production for the full year was at 1.817 billion gallons, up from 1.725 billion gallons in 2019, but down from 1.857 billion gallons in 2018.

Biodiesel producers sold 74 million gallons of B100 in December, up from 73 million gallons the previous month, and 73 million gallons of biodiesel sold as biodiesel blends, up from 72 million gallons in November. Ending stocks of B100 were at 49 million gallons in December, down from 52 million gallons in November, but flat when compared to the 49 million gallons of stocks reported for December 2019.

Sales of B100 for the full year reached 820 million gallons, up from 729 million gallons in 2019 and 765 million gallons in 2018. An additional 985 million gallons of biodiesel was sold in blends with petroleum diesel, down from 987 million gallons in 2019 and 1.093 billion gallons in 2018.

A total of 1.176 billion pounds of feedstock was used to produce biodiesel in December. Soybean oil remained the largest feedstock at 744 million pounds, followed by 147 million pounds of corn oil, 86 million pounds of yellow grease, 57 million pounds of white grease, 38 million pounds of tallow, 7 pounds of poultry fat, and 4 million pounds of other animal fats.

Additional data is available on the EIA website.