The U.S. EPA on March 20 published updated small refinery exemption (SRE) data showing that four new SRE petitions have been filed under the Renewable Fuel Standard during the past month. According to the agency, 156 SRE petitions are currently pending, up from 152 SRE petitions that were pending as of mid-February. 

All four newly submitted SRE petitions were filed on March 6 seeking waivers of compliance year 2021 RFS blending obligations. The petitions were filed by Alon Refining Krotz Springs, Alon USA, Delek Refining and Lion Oil Co. seeking waivers of 2021 renewable volume obligations (RVO) for their respective facilities in Kortz Springs, Louisiana; Big Spring, Texas; Tyler, Texas; and El Dorado, Arkansas. 

The 156 currently pending SRE petitions include two for compliance year 2016; one for compliance year 2017; 38 for compliance year 2018; 27 for compliance year 2019; 28 for compliance year 2020; 17 for compliance year 2021; 10 for compliance year 2022; 12 for compliance year 2023; 15 for compliance year 2024; and six for compliance year 2025.

The EPA took no action to approve or deny any SRE petitions during the past month. 

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 880 million RINs. A total of 540 million RINs have been retired under the alternative retirement schedule as of March 20. The total outstanding RVO is currently at 340 million RINs, according to EPA’s data dashboard.