The U.S. EPA on Jan. 18 released updated small refinery exemption (SRE) data, reporting that eight new SRE petitions have been filed under the Renewable Fuel Standard in the past month. A total of 15 SRE petitions are now pending. 

The eight newly filed SRE petitions include two petitions filed on Dec. 27 by U.S. Oil & Refining Co. seeking exemptions for the company’s facility in Tacoma, Washington for both the 2022 and 2023 compliance years; two petitions filed on Dec. 27 by Wyoming Refining Co. seeking exemptions for the company’s facility in Newcastle, Wyoming, for both the 2022 and 2023 compliance years; two petitions filed by Ergon Refining on Dec. 28 seeking exemptions for the company’s facility in Vicksburg, Mississippi for both the 2023 and 2024 compliance years; and two petitions filed by Eron-West Virginia filed on Dec. 28 seeking exemptions for the company’s facility in Newell, West Virginia, for both the 2023 and 2024 SRE compliance years. 

 The 13 currently pending SRE petitions now include two for compliance year 2024, six for compliance year 2023, three for compliance year 2022 and two for compliance year 2018. The EPA earlier this year began to publish company names and facility locations for SREs filed with the agency on or after July 1, 2022. In addition to the six newly filed SRE petitions, the remaining petition filed for compliance year 2022 was filed by Placid Refining Co., while the remaining petitions for 2023 were filed by Calumet Montana Refining, Calumet Shreveport Refining, Hunt Refining Co., Wynnewood Refining Co. The two SRE petitions currently pending for RFS compliance year 2018 were filed prior to July 1, 2022. As such, the EPA’s SRE data dashboard does not contain information on the small refineries that filed those petitions.

The EPA’s online SRE data dashboard also includes data on small refineries that have opted into the agency’s alternative renewable identification number (RIN) retirement schedule for the 2020 compliance year. According to the EPA’s online data dashboard, 17 small refineries are participating in the alternative RIN retirement schedule, with the total renewable volume obligation (RVO) for those refineries at 870 million RINs. A total of 500 million RINs have been retired under the alternative retirement schedule as of Jan. 18. The total outstanding RVO is currently at 380 million RINs, according to EPA’s data dashboard.