The EIA released its monthly biodiesel production report last Friday for “the first time in a long time,” as the agency put it.  

The report was last issued in October 2010, with data through December 2009. Afterwards, as discussed in a previous blog entry about discrepancies in EPA’s EMTS data and the EIA’s figures, which the latter obtained from the Census Bureau for part of last year, then from its short-term forecasts for the rest of the year until EIA was able to make the monthly production data available again. When Biodiesel Magazine reported on the difference in the yearly figures from both entities, the EPA had not yet sent Green Diesel LLC its Notice of Violation—the third such NOV to EPA-registered “producers” following NOVs to Clean Green Fuels and Absolute Fuels—for generating more than 60 million invalid RINs between July 2010 and July 2011.

The newly issued EIA report contains monthly production numbers for 2010 and 2011, as well as the 2010 and 2011 annual biodiesel production statistics. There is also a table on the number of biodiesel plants and their production capacity for each state. There is no state production, the agency notes, but there is biodiesel production by Petroleum Administration for Defense District.

Highlights from the report include December 2011 figures, which come in at 109 million gallons. Production came from 113 active biodiesel plants. Biodiesel production for all of 2011 was 967 million gallons, which the agency states was the highest level recorded since EIA began tracking this data.

Monthly biodiesel production had both sharp increases and decreases in 2009 and 2010 due in part to the expiration and reinstatement of federal tax credits and the renewable fuel standard (RFS2) affecting biodiesel. After reaching 64 million gallons in November 2009, biodiesel production fell following the expiration of the blending tax credit of $1 per gallon at the end of 2009, the agency points out. With the December 2010 reinstatement of the blending tax credit effective through December 2011, and increased requirements for biomass-based diesel under RFS2, production rebounded from a low of 22 million one year before.

Annual biodiesel production was 516 million gallons in 2009. Production fell to 343 million gallons in 2010 but then rebounded to 967 million gallons in 2011.

Soybean oil was the largest biodiesel feedstock in 2011, at 4,136 million pounds consumed. The next three largest biodiesel feedstocks during 2011 were canola oil (847 million pounds), yellow grease and other recycled feedstocks (665 million pounds), and white grease (533 million pounds).

The U.S. EPA also recently put out its March 2012 production figures from EMTS data. The EPA said 101 million gallons of biodiesel were produced in March, reporting year-to-date production of 236 million gallons through the end of March. The EPA numbers show a total of 108 million gallons of biomass-based diesel, but that figure also includes renewable diesel.